The Schwartzenbaum's New Kitchen

You can remodel a kitchen without spending a lot of money. This kitchen "makeover" cost only a couple thousand dollars.

We recently took a road trip, which meant staying in hotels (we didn't bring the camper) and one of the hotels had a television. Why people watch television is beyond me. Everything is an advertisement for consumption. But of course, we had to watch, right? It is like a drug.

On a "home show" (the sole reason we are in this Real Estate mess right now) they did a "kitchen makeover" for the Schwartzenbaum's. They had a nice enough kitchen, although the melamine cabinets were a little cheap-looking and the color scheme (black and white) was a bit dated.

First tidbit: When remodeling a kitchen, don't be tempted to do trendy schemes. What is popular this year will be out of style next year. Stick with something classic, as kitchen appliances can last 15-20 years with proper care and cabinets can last 30-50 if they are well made. Ripping out a functional kitchen because it is "outdated" makes no sense at all.

So the Schwartzenbaums were going to tear out a perfectly functional kitchen that would be useful for at least a decade more, mostly for style reasons. They were not changing the layout or functionality, just changing the cabinet styles and the colors of the walls, countertops, and flooring.

Total cost? $25,000 to $35,000. Ouch. Just for appliances and cabinets, basically.

On the plus side, they decided to go to all-white appliances and keep the newer stove. That saved about $500 right there. White may not be trendy like stainless steel, but it also is an enduring color and won't be dated five years from now (like stainless is already starting to get). So kudos for them for saving the stove, anyway.

Tearing up the tile floor just to change color was a costly move, however, and added a lot to the cost of the makeover.

Hiring people to do all the work was also costly. Things like painting and basic electrical work are not expensive to do. However, if you are not handy, you do have to pay. And pay.

The finished kitchen looked good, and with solid wood cabinets and neutral appliances, should be serviceable for decades to come (unlike the cheap and trendy black/white melamine kitchen the previous owners installed). But it was not cheap!

However, the entire project got me to thinking as to why Americans are so obsessed about kitchen and bath remodeling. The home improvement TeeVee shows tell us these are desirable things, and after a while, people start to believe this. The Schwartzenbaums kitchen was perfectly functional, and with a coat of paint and new cabinet faces, could have been made to at least look better. Why the need for solid wood cabinets and granite countertops? Why tear out and start over?

Probably, in one word: Status.

People buy many products based on status - the need to impress people they don't know. And we all do it, so don't pretend for a minute you don't do this, too.

Status is why people buy a Lexus instead of a Toyota, even though the cars may be the same underneath, come off the same assembly line, have the same engines, drivetrain, same options and everything else, other than a few "luxury" features, a fancy name, and $10,000 added to the price. Why would anyone pay more for the same car? In one word - Status.

A fancy car says "I have money, I am important, and moreover, I am BETTER THAN YOU!"

But of course, everyone else has a fancy car, so it doesn't matter. Or people don't notice. Or if they do, they say, "Who is the jerk-ass in the Lexus?" So it all really means nothing, but we all still chase that golden dream of impressing people we don't even know.

And the same is true of kitchens. People hope that everyone will "Oooh" and "Aaaah" over their new fancy kitchen. And because I know my friends expect this, I do it. "Ooohhh! Is that GRANITE? How nice!" Heck, they just dropped $30,000 on it, they should get some payback from it (other than microwaving their restaurant take-homes).

And that is the rub, too. Many of the folks owning "gourmet" kitchens are hardly gourmands, or even have good taste. I've seen this first hand - people who spend a hundred grand on a kitchen and say things like "Outback Steak House is my favorite restaurant! I just love the bloomin' Onion!"

No, they really do that. It is pretty sad. They think a chain restaurant is "good food."

And on the other hand, I've seen people who are wonderful cooks, who spend their lives devoted to food, making great meals on little more than a hot plate and a toaster oven. They don't have bubkis, but when it comes to making good food, they kick-ass.

Sure, fancy gear is always nice. But a functional stove and a well-laid out kitchen beat the "all show and no go" kitchens that most designers seem to come up with.

Before you drop tens of thousands of dollars into a showplace kitchen, ask yourself what the real reasons why you are doing it. And don't say "to add to resale value" because, as I have noted before in this blog, a fancy kitchen won't add more than its cost to resale value. You might recover 50 cents on the dollar - if you are lucky - particularly over time. Particularly in this economy.

You may find, upon examining your motives - in your quietest of moments - that the real reason you are remodeling is for status.

Get off the status-seeking bandwagon. Turn off the TeeVee. Stop trying to impress the neighbors or theoretical people you don't even know. Work with what you have and make a kitchen that is functional and useful.

The photo above is of our kitchen in our summer home. Pretty nice, eh? When we bought the home, the Merrilat cabinets were 15 years old. The appliances were functional, but black, not our first choice. Our initial instinct was to tear it all out and do it over in more modern materials, including a granite countertop, fancy tile floors, and solid wood cabinets. And of course, all new appliances.

But then we stepped back and thought about it. New cabinet knobs made the cabinets look more craftsman (and the faces are solid wood). The cabinets are in good shape, and surprisingly well made. A lively brick colored texture paint brought color to the kitchen. We replaced a down light with some track pendants (cheap and easy to install). Cabinet top florescent lights were replaced with rope lighting for a subdued lighting effect. The split system A/C was painted black to look more modern and to blend with the other appliances. We added a portable island from Lowe's to extend the countertop and add a cutting block. And we replaced the carpet with inexpensive engineered hardwood flooring.

Total Cost? Probably less than $2000, not counting the Stickley dining set! The point is, you can do a "makeover" without spending a ton of dough. All it takes is some imagination and resisting the urge to tear everything apart and starting over.

The Schwartzenbaum's kitchen is nice, but they replaced existing cabinets with the exact same size and shape cabinets in a different finish. Perhaps new cabinet faces could have done the job for a lot less money - in terms of material cost and especially labor.

Recessed lighting is all the rage right now (after people tore them out in the 1980's as being energy-inefficient!). But rather than drilling holes in the ceiling and spending hundreds, if not thousands on electrician's bills, consider inexpensive track lighting that any home owner can install - even pendants.

And rather than tearing up a tile floor (which can last 50 years) to replace black tile with grey, consider working with an existing color by altering wall paint or lighting.

The point is, you have options - other than spending tons of money. And spending tons of money won't pay back, in terms of resale value or functionality. And no, no one is impressed with your fancy kitchen. It doesn't say anything about you as a person. In fact, it says less, in many ways.

And as for granite countertops, they are very nice looking, but ask someone who owns them about glass breakage. Stone is very unforgiving of your dishware, and even setting down a glass too hard can result in shattered glass spraying everywhere - a real treat when you have company and food is laid out all over. Yes, it is impressive to look at, and it looks expensive. But in today's economy, we all know it is not really all that pricey. If you have functional counters that are easy to care for, that is a real plus. Tearing them out to install granite to impress the neighbors, is, well, kind of dumb.

And as for impressing people, sometimes that sort of thing can backfire. It is possible to be overly intimidating with expensive things in your home. People feel uncomfortable when you throw your success and status in their face. Folks who you might otherwise call friends, might be turned off by your over-the-top kitchen and fancy cars. You may run the risk of being called a materialistic yuppie...

The photo below is of the kitchen above, before we remodeled it. It was a clean, functional kitchen, but not to our tastes. But rather than "tear out and start over," we ended up doing a makeover ourselves, without having to hire anyone (other than for the flooring) and without having to spend a lot of money. In retrospect I am glad we didn't waste 20 or 30 grand doing what the Schartzenbaum's did. Because the end result would have been about the same - except that I would be that much more in debt.

You can live better by living stingy!

The same kitchen as above, "before".

Motorcycles

Motorcycles are a lot of fun, but hardly a practical or safe means of transportation.

You see them all the time on the road. Young men on "crotch rocket" motorcycles, going by at 80 or 90 miles an hour, with no helmet, and little more than shorts and a t-shirt on. We call them organ donors. If you fall off a motorcycle with such little protection, bad things happen in a real hurry.

And for many young men, this is often a fatal or life-changing experience. Super-fast motorcycles can be bought cheaply from Japan, and easily go from zero to 100 mph in a few seconds. Even the best reaction times are no match for an oncoming car turning left into your lane.

And that, in short, is the standard motorcycle accident - the car turning left into you. Yes, it usually is not the "fault" of the motorcycle rider (although usually the rider is going far too fast for conditions). An oncoming car driver decides to turn left and doesn't "see" the motorcycle, and the two collide.

The reasons for this sort of accident happening are various and well-documented. People tend not to view the single headlight of a motorcycle as a "vehicle" and it does not register in their brains. Or, if the motorcycle is going very fast, they cannot judge the closing speed, and assume that they have time to turn, thinking the bike is going as fast as some lumbering SUV.

Many motorcyclists put pulsing or flashing headlights on their bikes, in an effort to "wake up" car drivers and hopefully prevent such a fatal collision. But it still happens with too much regularity.

I've owned a couple of bikes and been in a couple of collisions. I was not seriously hurt, although I have a compressed disc in my neck as a result, which, as I age, is giving me some trouble.

I can tell you firsthand that the left-turn-in-front-of-the-motorcycle thing is a real issue. It seems like every jackalope out there wants to kill you when you are on a bike. They all want to turn left, it seems, just as you are oncoming. It's like they have "kill a biker" tattoo'ed on their foreheads.

And that's why I ended up selling my bikes and getting out of the game. As a practical means of transportation, a motorcycle leaves a lot to be desired. If the world was populated only with motorcycles, it would be great. But the world is populated with little old ladies who can barely see, or worse yet, "important people" who have to text, phone, eat, drink, and do all number of things will ostensibly driving their cars.

Safety gear helps. A good set of leathers will help reduce road rash when the inevitable happens. And it is inevitable. You know the old saw about there being two kinds of bikers - those who have been in a wreck, and those who are going to be in one.

A helmet protects your head and really is necessary, all this ABATE talk notwithstanding. Even a fall at a low speed can be fatal if you land on your head. That's why even bicyclists wear them (or should).

So you strap on your space-suit and put on your space helmet and..... you are isolated from the very environment you set out to enjoy. The great outdoors, with the sun shining and the wind in your hair - you ain't getting that on a motorcycle most of the time, unless you decide to ride without safety gear.

So, instead, you ride around with a bucket on your head, muffling the road noise and even limiting your field of vision. The loudest thing you hear is your own breathing. The fantasy of riding footloose and fancy-free, like Easy Rider is just that - a fantasy.

And once you are on your bike, where can you go? As a young person, I liked to go out to socialize. This meant going to bars - even biker bars. The problem is, while you might be able to drive a car after having a beer or two (and be under the legal limit for intoxication), on a bike, even a small amount of alcohol can impair your balance and reaction times. And since everyone else out there in their cars (usually drunk) is basically trying to kill you, it can make life miserable for you as a biker.

Because of this, most "serious" bikers would never think about drinking and riding - even a small amount. So that kind of sucks the fun out of life, unless you are a Mormon.

I just returned from a trip up the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive. Many folks take their bikes there to ride, as it is a relatively "safe" place to ride a motorcycle. There are few intersections and few cars (on weekdays) and the chance of a fatal left-turn car collision are smaller. Many folks actually trailer their bikes to locations such as this, just to ride in peace.

You can't blame them. Riding in city or even suburban traffic is not relaxing or enjoyable. You have to be vigilant at all times for the left-turning soccer mom who is sipping a latte and on the cell phone. Riding on the Interstate is the worst - blown around by truckers (who increasingly, are texting while driving, so much for the "knights of the road"!) and cut off by distracted vacationers.

Hard core bikers, of course, take this all in stride. They don't mind getting that 70 mph insect in the face (fun, when it is a bee or wasp) and having the inevitable collision. My hat is off to folks like that.

But for the rest of us, motorcycles are not really a realistic, cost-effective, safe, or practical means of transportation. A toy? Yes. A ride to work? Occasionally. But since they are a seasonal, fair-weather form of transport, they are not really cost-effective. And many bikes out there are costly - more than the cost of a new car.

If you buy a "cheap" motorcycle, you may find it interesting for a while. But eventually, the urge to get a bigger, more "serious" bike prevails, and you end up wanting to go large - such as a Harley. It is up-or-out at that point. For me, it was out, as I could not afford to spend $10,000 or more on a motorcycle, and the rate of return, in terms of enjoyment, was diminishing. Been there, done that. I had no desire to adopt this as a "lifestyle".

I also saw many of my biker friends get hurt, visiting them in the hospital, or attending their funerals. Some of the esoteric healing practices used on motorcycle injuries were things out of fright movies - external braces and bolts to rebuild shattered legs. Metal plates in the skull. You name it. And my friends who survived, well, laying there in the hospital, they'd be looking at new bike catalogs - hoping to buy the ultimate bike with someone elses insurance money.

And yea, in most cases, they were laid low by the left-turning car driver.  It is like some sort of sick comedy how regularly that occurs.

I was fortunate in that I was not injured too seriously.  A driver cut me off and I ended up on the hood of his car. He was a 20-year veteran of the Connecticut State Police and a Harley rider for decades as well. He was so apologetic as I climbed off the hood of his Oldsmobile. He said "I can't believe I hit a biker!"

I couldn't either. If I got hit by a cop - and a Harley rider to boot - what are the odds of being hit by all the truly clueless people out there? Pretty much 1:1.

So I sold the bike for about what I paid for it (got lucky there, bought it cheap in the dead of winter, two years before) and walked away from it.

Years later, I bought a secondhand sidecar rig for about $4000 on eBay. I had a lot of fun with that in the Keys and other vacation places. But once again, it seemed that every car driver was out to kill me with their stupid left-hand turns (two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left - remember that!). We enjoyed it for a while, but I found that riding it on city streets was taxing and stressful. The fantasy of the bucolic enjoyment was replaced by the nervous reality of bad car drivers, often literally forcing you off the road.

The end there was that jackass smoker who tossed his butt out the window (Jackass smokers, and I am being redundant here, like to make a big deal these days about flinging their butts in a dramatic way). The lit butt flew up into my helmet and burned me. At the next light, I let him have it, and he just said "fuck you" and drove off.

I sold the bike for more than I paid for it on eBay. I was lucky - again. Cheaper bikes tend to depreciate like mad. Even a few thousand miles is a lot for such bikes. Even larger bikes, like Harleys, depreciate, particularly in this recent recession. So, like a boat, RV, or other "toy", the cost per mile of ownership can be pretty staggering, even if they get decent gas mileage.

Again, these are toys. If you enjoy them, more power to you. But if you are toying with the idea of a motorcycle as a serious means of general transportation, forgetaboutit! Buy yourself a secondhand car instead. Want the wind in your hair? Get a convertible - I have three. When I ride by motorcyclists with their "brain buckets" on, in my convertible, I wonder who is really enjoying the freedom of the road more.

Mopeds and scooters bear special mention as these are often bought by people looking to use them as transportation devices. The accident rates for these are higher than traditional motorcycles, usually because they are bought by people who are not experienced in motorcycle riding. They look easier to ride than a motorcycle and ordinary citizens get lulled in by their apparent simplicity and lack of power as indicia of "safety".

But again, the danger is not in the bike itself, but in the car that hits you. So a low-powered moped or scooter is no safer than a crotch rocket. In fact, the lack of speed is an additional safety concern, as you are constantly being tail-gated and passed by cars, often being run off the road in the process. When I was a kid, I had a moped, and it was twice as dangerous as any motorcycle, in my opinion. And yea, you will get into a moped accident, several times, if you own one. Ever see a moped that is NOT dented? Maybe when they are new at the dealer...

Many resort areas rent mopeds and scooters to tourists, who have no biking experience. In many cases, you don't have to have a motorcycle license to ride these "small" bikes. As a result, they often end up wiping out these little bikes and often end up being hit by cars. Drinking and scootering, in particular, is a problem in some resort areas. I am sure you have seen the "ban moped rentals" bumper stickers on some folks' cars. Each sticker is a story - usually a sad story - about the end game from a moped rental.

But, like so much else in life, advice in this regard is rarely taken. Telling a 20-something male that spending a ton of dough on a crotch rocket is a bad idea is usually a waste of time. He has a new job and a W-2 and the man at the Ninja dealer can get him into the lime-green baby shown above for hardly anything per month. Heck, I know that at that age, I was all into it...

And paramedics will tell you about the messes they have to clean up as a result. A smashed crotch-rocket, usually with the paper temp tags still on it, and a mangled young body off in the weeds or wrapped into the grill of a car.

We had such a recent experience on Deer Trail Road, which is aptly named. A young man, late at night, doing 90 mph on the highway, zooms by. A few seconds later, the sickening sound of flesh hitting flesh at speed. He hit a deer at nearly 100 mph. The bike slides down the road, relatively unharmed. The young man, wearing nothing more than a helmet, t-shirt, shorts, and sandals (!!) is found in a tree, quite dead.

It is a story repeated over and over again. And the sad part is, it is a story not told often enough in public. A line or two in the paper, perhaps an obituary. Only spectacular accidents make headlines, and even then, only occasionally. The more run-of-the-mill type, where a driver turns left in front of a bike, are usually not even mentioned, particularly where the motorcyclist is only "injured" (a euphemism for months of hospital time, surgery, and rehabilitation).

In Central New York, it is almost a dark comedy in this regard.  The local biker club will hold a memorial "poker run" to commemorate the death of some fellow biker, who died last year - during another "poker run".  It seems that each event generates a new death to celebrate next year with another commemorative event.  And yet the folks doing this fail to see the irony of it all.  It is like those Hispanics who build memorials on the Interstates to their loved ones who died in a wreck there, and then they get run over while putting flowers on the memorial.  Both groups are candidates for the Darwin Awards, to be sure.

The point of this blog entry is not to dissuade you from buying a bike.  Just as you can't persuade a marijuana user to stop smoking pot (they have to figure it out on their own) you can't convince a biker of much of anything.  If you've got the bug, chances are, you'll do it, no matter what people say.

If you are thinking about buying a bike or scooter as daily transportation, however, maybe you might want to think about a secondhand car instead - more practical, more useful, more comfortable, safer, and cheaper in the long run.

And if you've gotten into biking and are finding it less and less fun, then go ahead and get out. All this nonsense about "I'll never sell my bike" is just marketing baloney from the manufacturers (who don't want to see the market flooded, as it is now, with used bikes).

FWIW.

The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail

Robert Heinlein wrote a short story based loosely on his Naval Academy experiences about a man so lazy that he became successful. It is an interesting parable.

As a youth, I used to escape from reality by reading Science Fiction. That, and drugs. The former was probably a better influence. It has been interesting to live in the intervening decades and see much of the "Sci Fi" of my youth become the future history of the planet.

Future History, of course, is a term coined by Robert Heinlein, the famous Science Fiction writer. Heinlein's work can be somewhat sophomoric and perhaps even ultra-libertarian, but his works often illustrate - cleverly - aspects of human living that are not readily apparent to many.

For example, in Time Enough for Love, Heinlein's character Lazarus Long is seen burning money at the bank he is running on a small planet. A friend is aghast that someone could be so foolish as to burn something as valuable as money. Long explains that whenever his bank has to issue money, he just prints more. Rather than leave money laying about (and tempting robbers) he just burns the "deposits" until someone asks to withdraw money - at which point he prints more.

And it is a story-within-the-story that really tells a significant truth. The underlying value of money is not in the paper and ink, but in the idea of its worth. And like the disbelieving character in the story, most people simply don't get it. After all, money is valuable, right? You can't simply burn it. (And the story pretty much mirrors what our government does on a daily basis - shredded old obsolete bills and printing millions more to replace them).

The Gold Bugs should read that story - and understand that the value of gold is really just an idea that can (and will) change over time. Gold is no "save haven" for investors, as history has shown. Once the idea about its value increases, the supply will as well - leading to a decrease in the idea of its value.

But another story in that same book also made an impression on me as a youth. It was the Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail. It is a funny story, loosely based on some of his experiences at the Naval Academy. A young officer, assigned to a particular task, realizes that the laborious way people were doing it before was shortsighted ("We've always done it this way" - how many times have you heard that?). So he finds shortcuts to make his job easier, because he is so incredibly lazy. Since he gets his work done faster (and better) he gets promoted - again and again.

The story follows him to his private life were a similar thing occurs and before long he ends up a millionaire.

It is an interesting and useful story, in my opinion, as it illustrates several aspects of human nature that we should all be aware of. First, is the tendency of people to do the same things over and over again without questioning why they are doing them - and whether they can be done differently or better. Many inventors who come to me for advice have not come up with earth-shattering inventions. Rather, they have just noticed what others have blinded themselves to - that there are better ways of doing things. And oftentimes, people argue - in hindsight - that such inventions are therefore "obvious". But of course, they are obvious to us now.....

Second, seeing things from different angles is vitally important if you really want to succeed in life. Many folks like to "follow the herd", convinced that there is safety in numbers. There can be safety at the center of the herd, but as I have pointed out before, the grass there is trampled down and pooped upon. And often the herd can be spooked into a dangerous and ill-conceived stampede - sometimes off a cliff!

Third, while blinding ambition is not necessarily a bad thing, many people who are successful become so not through trickery, deception, and sharp practice, but rather through lack of ambition and the use of innovation in the place of hard work. The people who desperately climb the corporate ladder - willing to stab a co-worker in the back at a moment's notice - rarely really "succeed" in life, either on a financial or personal level (or not both). Such success is transitory at best and illusory at worst.

To some extent, I have tried to model my life on Heinlein's parable. My career has not followed the well-worn path laid out by others. And I have tried, through laziness, to find easier ways of doing things in order to cut costs and save money. And 9 times out of 10, it has worked.

Many of my friends who followed the herd have done well, but not spectacularly so. My fellow Engineering grads who went to work for big companies all ended up being laid off eventually. Few ever saw a pension or a gold watch after 25 years of service. And few made it up the corporate ladder to the coveted VP slot and the corner office. At best, most may retire with some modest savings after a lifetime of hard work.

A few who started their own companies did well, on the other hand. But that involved risk, and not everyone who took such risks succeeded of course. Those who failed? Well, they ended up with the same desk jobs as those who never tried.

And the same is true of my time in Government. Many of my fellow workers wanted to "do their time" so they could "get their 20 years in" and retire on a Government pension. A good plan, except for those who died 19 years into the bargain. And 20 years is an awfully long time, in my opinion, to work at any government job.

Many of my fellow law school students followed the path to the big firms, hoping to be promoted to Partner some day and make big money. Due to the pyramid nature of law firm partnerships, more than half never succeeded in their goal. Many of those who did succeed later on decided that the goal wasn't all it was cracked up to be - and ended up leaving.

Myself, I was never very ambitious. I went to Engineering school only because General Motors and United Technologies paid me to go. And when I graduated, I took at job at the Patent Office because it seemed like easier work than designing air conditioners in Arkansas. That, and my boss flat-out told me his department would be closed in 3 years. And when the Patent Office said they'd pay me to go to Law School, well that seemed like the path of least resistance as well.

Working in a law firm was hard work. And being lazy, I didn't understand why 2/3 of the money I made should be paid to cover a fancy office I didn't want, or to pay partners who rarely showed up for work. It just seemed like a no-brainer that I could work less and earn more on my own.

And that is where being lazy came in handy. Law firms like to throw huge salaries at you to entice you to work there. But my reaction was, "Why can't you pay me 1/4 as much and have me come in 2 days a week?" But that option wasn't available at the time. I didn't need the money but once you start making it, it is hard to stop.

One of the mistakes I made when starting my own practice was to follow the big firm model. After all, "that's the way we've always done it" - right? I hired Associates, a secretary, a paralegal, and bought an office building and leased a photocopier. And I was miserable. I had traded one treadmill for another. It took a lot of time for me to figure out that doing the way everyone else does is not the answer.

So I laid everyone off, rented out the office building and went back to doing what I did best - writing Patents. I didn't need to do a lot of work to succeed. And since I didn't have to run a treadmill every day to make money to pay overhead, I could take more time to write the cases the way I wanted to. But it took a long time to realize that model could work - and it took risk. There was no shortage of my fellow practitioners who said "it can't be done" either.

Since then I have tried to live as frugally as possible. I have also made the mistake of falling into the trap of owning things and that is one thing I am trying to change right now. Being lazy, I don't want to work very hard. And when you buy something, you have to work in order to pay for it. In fact - getting back to the first Heinlein story noted above - the idea of money really is represented by work. Each dollar in your pocket represents a measured amount of your labor.

So while a shiny fancy luxury car is a nice thing to have, in order to own it, you have to labor more. Own less, labor less. It is a very simple concept. And when you are spending all of your working hours making money to own things you never have time to use (because you are laboring to pay for them) then something is very, very wrong.

I see this all the time at the Lake. We have a small cottage on the water and were worried that the adjoining properties would be crowded with noisy families all the time. Turns out we needn't have worried. Most people are so busy working - so that can pay the cable bill and their car payments - that they never use their lake properties. Most are abandoned for 9/10ths of the summer.

There is no point in owning something if you never really get to enjoy it. You are better off working less and enjoying more.

I guess I have always been this way. My Elementary School report cards bear this out. "Robert is a bright lad, but needs to apply himself more" was a comment that was made by more than one teacher. I viewed much of school as make-work and busy-work to keep kids occupied, and moreover train us for a life of 9-5 existence.

When all is said and done in life, much of what we felt was critical and important in life ends up discarded. It is like on the last day of the school year, after you leave for the Summer. All those tests and quizzes and book reports and homework - so important to you during the school year - are now just trash to be thrown out. Was it all ever that important?

The same is true with careers. Do something you love - or at least enjoy - but don't take it all too seriously. Because when it is all said and done, chances are, no one will remember you for the work you did at Woodmen of the World Insurance Company.

Making time for yourself is more important than all that - and probably the most costly thing you can really "own" in your life is your own free time. Yet so many of us are all-too-willing to enslave ourselves for the sake of a dream job or a fancy house or fancy car. It needn't be that way.

Looking back, my only regrets were that I didn't have more courage to be more like Heinlein's Lazy Man. It was difficult to buck the norms of society and see things in a different light. The compulsion to conform is strong on all of us, and very few succeed in varying from this in even the smallest way.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try...

Decisions... and Change

Making a Decision can be a painful and stressful experience. But deciding not to decide is also making a decision.

I recently had to make one of the more momentous decisions in my life and it has not been an easy experience. Actually, there have been other decisions in my life which have been more important than this, but at the time I made those decisions, I didn't realize how important they were. I just stumbled into things at that early age, and hoped everything would work out OK. In retrospect, that was much easier.

As you get older, however, things change. To begin with, you appreciate more how decisions affect your life. And moreover, as an older person, you don't have the luxury of a "do over" as much as you did when you were young. Suddenly, each decision in life seems less reversible and more important. You have savings, you have a job, you have a house, and what you decide to do is more and more important.

Many people react to this stress by deciding not to decide. So they stay at a job they hate, at a factory that is closing, and act surprised when they are laid off. "I never saw it coming," they say, but what they really mean is "I refused to see it coming and take action, because that would involve making a decision, and decisions scare me."

Why does deciding scare people? It is funny, but it does. People, as I have noted in my companion Losing Weight Now blog, are afraid of something as trivial as a bad meal, much less investing in the wrong mutual fund. So they shun a new restaurant experience on the premise that the risk of having a bad entree is too much risk to take. Many folks will only try a new restaurant if it gets good reviews or if all their friends go there and like it first - or if the parking lot is full and there is a line out the door.

But not deciding can be worse than making a bad decision. In the recent recession, many folks have lost their jobs or found themselves upside-down on a house and unable to afford the payments. Rather than cut their losses and move on, they cash in their savings to pay the mortgage for a few more months, hoping, against all common sense, that somehow it will all magically turn out OK for them. In the end, they lose the house, go bankrupt, and lose their life savings.

A better decision than not deciding is to decide - to see how things are trending and take action. Short-sale the house and walk away, rather then squander all your savings trying to "hold on" for a few more months. But few people do this, and the reason usually is pride - they don't want to be seen as "giving up" on their lifestyle. So rather than make a smart move and sell when they can, they end up with their possessions on the street and their house being sold at auction.

Thus, not deciding is usually worse than making a "wrong" decision. You are better off taking hold of the helm and guiding the ship than to let the wheel spin and hope your boat doesn't end up on the rocks.

For me, the difficult decision has been retirement. At age 50, I can basically afford to retire now. Or, I can keep working in order to support a large collection of consumer goods. When I was in my 20's, it seemed like having a lot of "stuff" was important. Now, in my 50's, I want to own as little as possible.

So, I could keep going as I was, on the premise that making a decision would be difficult (suppose I chose wrongly?) and to avoid being seen (by who?) as "giving up" - or I could make a decision and change my life.

I decided.  We decided.

We are going to retire and live on Jekyll Island. I can do this and have one home, paid for, two cars, paid for, and no debt, and money in the bank. So..... why not do it? With reduced expenses, we can afford to travel more and do different things. We will still go North every year to escape the heat, but instead of owning a home up there, we will stay in our RV or on our boat or rent a cottage - for far less than the cost of ownership.  For less than the cost of property taxes in New York.

Real Estate prices have stabilized and will not skyrocket anytime soon. So selling now is not "missing out" on some later Real Estate pricing boom. Frankly, in this market, if you can sell for more than you paid, you are doing well, and we are doing well. We can afford to rent a lake cottage for less than what we are paying in Real Estate taxes on our home there.

This will mean a big change in our life and it will mean downsizing a lot. We have two houses full of furniture and two sets of everything you could possibly own - from vacuum cleaners to coffee makers to socks and underwear, to cars and appliances.

And it is a scary decision to make, too. Are we doing the right thing? Are we selling the right house? Most folks would laugh at our indecision - being able to MAKE such a decision is a luxury that most cannot even fathom.

But I think it is the right decision, for the following reasons:

1. We always intended to sell the NY house and move to Jekyll full time. It was just a matter of "when" not "if".

2. Taxes are far, far lower in Georgia than New York, so it would be better to sell there than vice-versa.

3. We are Georgia residents and I am admitted to the Georgia Bar.

4. The Jekyll Property is more likely to increase in value as the island is revitalized.

5. Four golf courses, miles of deserted beaches, bike trails, recreation.

6. Single-level living and 36" wide doors will make for better retirement options.

7. Summer vacation options "up North" by camper are much greater than options for spending winters "down South". Florida gets pretty crowded in January.

The agonizing over making this decision was horrible. Having made it, now we can relax, and it makes a lot of other decisions for us. Now we can concentrate on downsizing and changing our live. And you know what? Change is exciting and fun. It means getting rid of a lot of "things" we thought we would have forever. But life changes and your needs change, so oftentimes, things you thought you'd always have, well, you don't need them anymore.

What do I need with six bicycles and four kayaks, anyway? Time to sell and move on...

Change can be invigorating and a good antidote (or preventative) to depression. Many people stay in the same mode, year after year, and wonder why they are not happy. I prefer to do different things at different times in my life and not feel "locked in" to decisions I made decades ago.

Yet most people do just the opposite - "staying the course" on decisions they made years back, as if they could not be reversed.

My Father preached this false religion, often telling us that "once you decide to so something, you have to stick with it!" - as if changing conditions and events could not be factored in. Perhaps that was his consolation or logic for staying with a job and a family he no longer wanted. "Stick with it" was all he had. But in the long run, change probably would have been a better idea.

I look forward to this next phase in my life. The next decade should be more exciting and fun - with less work to do and more things to do. Less things to own and more places to see. More golf, less work. And less reliance on a "job" to stay solvent from day to day.

Do you need or want Four-Wheel-Drive?

Four Wheel Drive and All Wheel Drive vehicles are very commonplace today - yet made up a small segment of the car industry as little as 20 years ago. Do you need four wheel drive in your vehicle? Or more concisely, does it pass the cost-benefit analysis test?

I've owned a number of four wheel drive and all wheel drive vehicles over the years. Ironically, when I lived in snow country, I never had one. Not even front wheel drive. We made do back then with rear wheel drive cars - often without posi-traction, and still got to work every day, even in a blizzard.

So why are four wheel drive cars so popular today? And do you really want or need one?

The first question is easier to answer. We are a wealthier country today than we were 40 years ago, so we can afford fancier cars, bigger boats, larger houses, giant televisions. And technology has made such consumer goods more "affordable" than before. Still more expensive, but now more affordable.

So four-wheel-drive, once limited to a few people who really needed it, has moved across the board as a commonplace option, like power windows and air conditioning (which 40 years ago, were also rare).

So today, we can "afford" these vehicles - or think we can. But do we really need the complexity and cost involved? What are the advantages to having four-wheel or all-wheel drive? For most people, it is largely an unnecessary expense, as we shall see.

Let me anticipate the response from some ignorant folk. "Well, some people need four-wheel drive to plow snow!" Well, duh. But a Subaru Outback isn't about to plow snow. Others might argue "Well, it snows where I live, I need an AWD car to get to work!" But as I noted before, many folks did just fine with rear wheel drive cars in the past. Why the sudden "need" for all-wheel or four-wheel drive?

And perhaps an explanation of these terms is in order.

Traditional Four Wheel Drive (4WD, 4x4) vehicles have a transfer case, usually two-speed, that can be engaged part-time. New Process Gear, a former division of Chrysler Corp., made many of these transfer cases. There is a 4x4 high range, 4x4 low range, neutral, and 2wd mode. Older Jeeps and 4x4 Pickup trucks used this type of system. A second drive shaft and a powered front axle - usually live, drove power to the front. Early models had manual locking hubs, which could be disengaged to reduce driveline friction. Later models had self-locking hubs which supposedly would engage and disengage automatically when four wheel drive was engaged or disengaged.

Such traditional systems had a 2WD mode, as they could not be driven in 4x4 mode on dry pavement, without chewing up tires or breaking driveline parts, particularly when turning. In the late 1970's GM offered a "full time 4WD" option on their trucks, and it tended to eat tires and get very poor gas mileage. Many upper-end versions of this traditional type of 4x4 may have posi-traction type differentials, or locking differentials, for extreme off-road use.

All Wheel Drive (AWD) is a somewhat different beast. These vehicles usually are permanently in four wheel drive mode, with no shift lever in the transfer case for high or low ranges. Usually, these systems use a Ferguson-type coupling (viscous) or a differential to couple the front wheels to the driveline, so that some slippage is allowed, which permits the vehicle to drive on dry pavement without chewing up its tires. The BMW X5 and entire Subaru line are examples of "All Wheel Drive" type vehicles.  These are not four-wheel drive vehicles, even though they drive all four wheels.

The recent explosion in 4x4 sales has largely been of the All Wheel Drive variety, which is popular in many SUVs and mini-SUVs. Some are based on front wheel drive platforms, with the rear wheels being the added drive wheels. And some, like the Honda CRV, when offered in 2WD versions, simply remove the rear differential portion of the drive train, which is readily apparent to anyone following such a car.

Regardless of drive type - 4x4 or AWD - there are significant costs associated with owning such vehicles:

1. The added equipment, including the transfer case, drive shaft, powered axle, and other beefed-up components, adds thousands of dollars to the vehicle purchase price - generally on the order of $1500 to $4000.
2. The added weight of all this equipment (500-1000 lbs) reduces gas mileage of the vehicle considerably, and also decreases cargo capacity.
3. The added friction of the drivetrain severely reduces gas mileage as well.
4. The added maintenance for these components adds to the cost of ownership, particularly as the car ages and major driveline components fail.
5. Other components, such as tires and brakes may wear more quickly in AWD versions of vehicles.

The gas mileage thing is what strikes most people, initially. Many Subaru buyers are chagrined to discover that their little politically-correct wagons are horrible gas hogs. Few Subarus top 30 mpg, with most getting in the range of 25 mpg or less (the "Tribeca" struggled to get 20!). In an era where a front wheel drive family sedan can easily get 30 mpg or more, this is appalling.  (UPDATE: Subaru has addressed the gas mileage problem and is making strides, but still, an AWD SUV is never going to get the mileage of a sedan or station wagon with FWD).

BMW offers AWD versions of some of its cars (the so-called "X-drive" which is just a marketing term), and many users report that brake life in such vehicles is reduced, perhaps due to the extra mass of the driveline components. Tire life may also be reduced due to increased scrubbing caused by AWD.

For long-term ownership, the doubling in complexity in the driveline may also be an issue. In addition to the transfer case (which is like having a second transmission) the number of drive shaft segements (and U-joints or CV joints) is doubled. Add in a front axle with CV joints, and there are even more modes of failure to contemplate. The simpler you can make a vehicle, the cheaper it is to own and maintain. Adding AWD adds to complexity, so the benefits had better be worth the cost.

Taken together, this results in a significant increase in the cost of ownership for a vehicle with AWD versus, say front wheel drive. Like anything else, is this additional cost offset by an additional benefit? That is the question you have to ask yourself. And for probably 90% of AWD and 4x4 vehicle buyers, the answer is a resounding "NO".

Why is this? Well, for starters, most people don't live in areas where it snows, or there are dirt roads or other quasi-off-road conditions. 95% of all 4x4 and AWD vehicles are never taken "off road" in their lifetimes, which is a good thing. Most consumer-grade vehicles (even Jeeps) are ill-suited for serious off-road adventures. AWD vehicles in particular, are not suited for off-roading, as they can easily get stuck and have little ground clearance. Tough-looking Jeeps with fording snorkels might look off-road capable. But try fording a stream in one, and chances are, you will void the warranty and perhaps short out one of the many electrical systems in the car.

In short, real off-roading should be done by real off-roaders, using vehicles suitably modified (or built) for that purpose. Taking the family grocery-getter on the Rubicon trail is a really bad idea, even if the vehicle claims to be a "Rubicon" model. Most of these 4x4 and AWD vehicles are sold on the basis of style, not capability. So AWD has become, in effect, the tail fins of our era.

But what about snow? What about it? As I noted before, my generation made do with rear-wheel-drive cars and snow tires for decades and still got to work on time. Many of these had no posi-traction, and thus in effect were one-wheel-drive cars in the snow.

And when the snow is so bad that they are closing the schools and places of employment, what is the point of having a 4x4? There really is no place to go, until everything thaws out. That's what I learned in Washington DC during the "blizzards" they have there. You (and every other jackalope with an SUV) might be able to drive around, but there is no place to go, as everything is closed. And of course, over-confident SUV drivers end up planting their cars in the snowbanks anyway. Four wheel drive is not impervious to snow!

The irony is, many AWD owners don't put on snow tires anymore, convinced that their AWD is an acceptable substitute for snow tires. So they slip-slide on "All Season Radials" and rely on AWD to save their butts.

A front-wheel-drive car with snow tires will handle snow far better than an AWD car with all-season-radials. And you can buy a set of snow tires for far less than the cost of AWD.   If you factor in the extended life of your summer tires as a result, the cost of going to snow tires is really limited to the cost of extra rims and annual mounting. Comparing this to the extra gas used by an AWD, the maintenance and initial cost, you can see that a FWD car with snow tires is a far cheaper alternative.

And with modern traction controls, Front Wheel Drive cars with snow tires can really go places. Traction control has largely supplanted posi-traction differentials in the last few years, and it works really well. I recently drove my car to New York in February. I was taking it North to service it, and one item it needed was new rear tires. The summer tires on it were nearly bald. As luck would have it, it started snowing - heavily - as I arrived. Even with bald summer tires, on a rear-wheel-drive car, we made it home with no real issues - even driving uphill from a standstill. The traction control clanked and clunked, but it prevented wheelspin. 

Still convinced you "need" All-Wheel-Drive? I'm not.

Some manufacturers claim that AWD improves handling, even on dry pavement or in the rain. Subaru is taking this tack nowadays, as its "beauty of all wheel drive" campaign seems to be faltering in view of their horrible gas mileage. While improved handling may be one advantage, I suspect that for most of us, the difference is negligible. Most people simply don't drive like boy-racers all the time.

I have owned a number of these vehicles over the years and still have two. I have my Ford 4x4 pickup, which has a traditional two-speed transfer case and locking hubs. I've had the truck for 15 years and used four wheel drive maybe a dozen times. It has been handy for pulling boats up slippery tidal ramps, but that's about it.  (Note:  Another approach to the boat issue is to mount a trailer hitch on the front of your vehicle, for boat launching purposes, so the rear wheels are above the "slime line" on tidal boat ramps).

It cost maybe $3000 more in purchase price than its 2WD cousin, back in 1995, and over the years, has used a few thousand dollars more in gasoline. It had about 500 pounds less in cargo capacity as well. So far, the driveline hasn't broken, but it has used two locking hubs (the self-locking hubs broke on a long drive to the Keys, and I replaced them with WARN manual locking hubs). If I was to buy a new truck today, I would buy a 2WD version, and save the money.  (UPDATE DECEMBER 13, 2013:  I did.   A new Frontier 4x2 is about $5000 less than the comparable 4x4.  The latter does "look tough" though, which is why young men buy them.  UPDATE 2018:  We bought a 2016 Ford F150 4x2 and got a good deal on it because it wasn't four wheel drive and thus harder for the dealer to sell.  We've only gotten stuck once, at a muddy campground.  Six people with 4x4's immediately volunteered to pull our trailer out.  So, no big sacrifice.  Next time - no shortcuts through the mud!)

Over the life of the vehicle, four-wheel-drive cost probably $5000 to $10000 more to own, in terms of initial purchase price, repairs, and mostly, gasoline. The benefits were limited, at best.

With other vehicles, I have had similar experiences. The BMW X5 is a nice tow vehicle for our camper. But the AWD feature is not something that I really use (particularly with its low-profile P255/55 R18 tires) and there really is no reason this car should get only 21 mpg on the highway. Shed of its extra AWD component weight and driveline drag, this vehicle could easily get 25 mpg.

Again, all costs, little benefit.

I recently sold my Jeep. A real one, not one of those plastic buggies they sell today. A 1948 Willys CJ-2A, re-powered with a small-block Chevy. While it was a true "go anywhere" type of vehicle, I found that it spent most of its time in 2WD mode. We rarely took it off-road, even though it had a twin-stick transfer case and positraction, front and rear.

Image sells vehicles, and when I was a young man, I succumbed to this and bought a Suzuki Samurai. Yes, it was a tinny piece of junk, and wholly unsuitable for general transportation on America's highways. But like many other young people, I was drawn to the image of the rugged 4x4 more than anything. The reality of a leaky, bone-jarring ride turned out to be an entirely different sort of thing, however, and I quickly sold it and bought a nice, air-conditioned Camry.

And image is what sells most of these vehicles. Soccer-Mommies want the powerful image of the rugged off-roader, even though they will never, ever take their Suburban even onto the lawn. Young men like the macho image of the rough, tough 4x4, replete with off-road accessories like extra lights and the aforementioned snorkel intake.

And that is the main reason people buy these things - image and marketing. And as we have discussed before, image and marketing are probably the worst reasons to buy any product. Very few of us "need" a four-wheel-drive or AWD vehicle, and yet these vehicles now comprise a large portion of auto sales.

Before you jump on the AWD bandwagon, consider the actual costs involved, both in terms of purchase price, and long-term ownership. Then weigh the alleged benefits. Chances are, the benefits are fleeting or non-existent. Chances are, the only real benefit is to your ego.

For general transportation purposes, a well-made front-wheel-drive car with traction control and anti-lock brakes (automatic stability control) is more than adequate for most people's needs. If you live in snow country, invest in a set of quality snow tires (all four wheels). You'll end up giving your AWD neighbor a ride to work, after he plants his "Outback" shod with all-season radials into a snowbank.