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What’s Motivating Me To Save?

By Frugaling 11 Comments

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Hamster Wheel
Photo: Dan Derrett/Flickr

Most days I live a chaste life. If they created a reality TV show of my life, it would be cancelled before the air date. Hell, the film crew would probably fall asleep in production. It’s a simple, hamster wheel existence that consists of getting up, making breakfast, reading for hours, working, and repeating that all the next day. The bummer is I want more than this.

Over the last few weeks of summer, as I’ve been on my constant rinse and repeat cycle, a growing desire to travel has crept up. More than travel, it’s a desire for more adventure. But then there’s my life and reality.

Being a 25-year-old doctoral student is a lesson in delayed gratification — working hard now to find enjoyable work and a reasonable paycheck later in life. Like many times before, on this frugal journey, I look at my budget. The numbers don’t add up. I can’t spend the money to travel to England, France, or visit Montreal. I just don’t have it, as I would need to take out student loans again to support the travel. That’s unacceptable to me. The psychological burden of student loans was too great and the interest rate of 6.8% is punitive.

I’m struggling to see the path and reason for my frugality. It’s here that I introspect, “What’s motivating me to save money and avoid more student loans?” There are both great opportunities and real challenges that create this defensive personal finance stance.

One of the biggest motivators is fear. Constant rises in income inequality, climate change, and a political environment that is skewed to the wealthiest are frightening me. If you’re not part of the bourgeois, you’ll likely be fighting, clawing, and begging your way out of lower income categories over the next few decades. Knowing that the foreseeable future will likely include environmental refugees (e.g., economists and researchers have increasingly theorized that the Syrian civil war was motivated by drought and the Pentagon has suggested that climate change may be a global threat) and massive changes in employment possibilities (I have no idea where or when I’ll be hired when I finally graduate), I’m eager to sock away some cash. Accurate or not, these are the challenges that drive me to save.

On the flip side, I’m motivated to save for a number of fun, experiential opportunities. I want to travel the world, develop a fluency in a foreign language (if I still have the brain power at that point in my life), give to the scholarship I started at Colorado State University, and develop a thriving practice as a counseling psychologist. These will all require a steady and safe savings. More importantly, they’re all worth the delayed gratification and relative banality of my life right now for more later on.

It’s with this yin-yang relationship — balanced — that I’m forgoing the travel now to live a better life later on. Until then, I’m diving into a good book and pretending to travel to faraway places and positions — loving every minute of the dream and working my butt off to make that happen.

Filed Under: Save Money Tagged With: Budget, climate change, Giving, Income Inequality, saving money, scholarship, Student Loans, Travel

Take Action To Reduce Climate Change And Lower Monthly Bills

By Frugaling 5 Comments

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The crisis of climate change

The climate is completely off-kilter. As humans, we’ve contributed to an atmospheric rise in climate change since the industrial revolution. It all traces back to our abundant consumption and fossil fuel use. In case there are skeptics in my audience, the evidence is clear that humans impacted climate change dramatically.

A couple months ago, the New York Times reported that,

A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday.

Something snapped inside me, and I felt deep pain. How could we have done this to ourselves and the planet? I actually teared up, thinking about how we treat each other and this planet. It really hurt.

Shortly after that article, another was published that warned, the “Worst is yet to come.” Research found that record heat and floods were largely due to climate change:

The American scientists said the rise could be anywhere from one to four feet, and added that six feet could not be ruled out. Along much of the East Coast, the situation will be worse than the global average because the land there is sinking…

There goes New York City, Boston, parts of D.C., Miami, and more. We don’t have a contingency plan for all these people. The devastation would affect tens of millions of people. Individuals would flock to the west for shelter and a new start; at least, those who could afford it. I hesitate to think about those who might not have the economic freedom to up and leave low altitude areas.

Our consumer, consumption culture

This unpleasant, scary picture for the planet’s future is contrasted by a strong consumer culture that values growth, dominance, bulk, and abundance. When gross domestic product (GDP) estimates tumble on the national scale, economists, politicians, and Wall Street scream bloody murder. But when the temperatures are rising globally, and sea level rise is threatening entire countries, there’s silence.

We are an economy that’s feasting off of short-term gains, prolonged ignorance, and immediate gratification. Climate change skeptics are a dime-a-dozen and they’re propagating messages that are scientifically unproven, untrue, and dangerous. It’s all motivated by moneyed interests, and they’re looking for a way to keep the consumption going.

DJIA Stock Market Growth
30 stocks make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)

Our entire economic system is predicated on continued growth, but it will slow. Whether because of declining population growth rates, economic instability, or climate change, the economy will need a correction. It’s hard to fathom the willful, blissful ignorance of the markets, but the economy has not yet accounted for the pains of climate change. Just look at the most recent national weather tragedy, Hurricane Sandy:

An estimated 1.8 million structures and homes were destroyed or damaged, with economic losses exceeding $65 billion.

Unfortunately, the storms, floods, and wacky weather are only expected to increase. The economic consequences will be devastating for this country. Something’s gotta give.

Make an individual correction, save big

Frugality, simple living, thriftiness — whatever you want to call it — goes hand in hand with reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere (CO2). By consuming less and saving more, your actions can greatly help the environment.

Climate change is simple science. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more the earth’s temperatures will rise. The sun’s rays/heat will be trapped in our atmosphere, and keep us warmer. We needed some CO2, but now we have too much.

Congress and the greater world seem doomed to delay powerful action to reduce the effect of carbon emissions. While moneyed interests, lobbying groups, and industry experts delay necessary change, you needn’t stand still. There’s still time to take action.

Here are 7 ways you can make an individual impact on climate change and save big:

  1. Walk, bike, or bus to school/work instead of driving
  2. Bring your own bags or reuse them at the grocery store
  3. Shut off water when you’re not actively using it
  4. Turn off your lights when you leave home
  5. Try to buy local foods and products when you can afford them
  6. Turn off or get rid of your air conditioner
  7. Encourage friends, family, and your own politicians to care for this issue, too

Filed Under: Save Money Tagged With: carbon, Climate, climate change, CO2, Congress, Consumption, Culture, Hurricane Sandy, refugees, shelter, tax

220 Million Gallons Of Gas Per Year: The Case For A Carbon Tax

By Frugaling 1 Comment

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The price we pay at the pump is inaccurate

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about what might happen if gas were to spike to $10 per gallon. The comments and tweets were enlightening. Nobody wants this to happen, and the consequences could be drastic to our still-fragile economy. Today, I wanted to focus on a different angle: the hidden price we pay for burning fossil fuels (aka, oil).

The national average gas price sits at $3.67 per gallon. Most of that consumer cost goes to a massive supply chains of drillers, explorers, refiners, transporters, commodities exchanges, and storefronts. It supports their bottom line. This process of getting oil from the ground into a refined fuel source is an elegant dance. Without every component working in harmony, we wouldn’t be able to fill up our cars.

Where our current fuel taxes go

In America, our price per gallon includes about 50 cents for state and federal taxes. Of that 50 cents, about 18-20 cents per gallon is directly funneled to the federal government as an excise tax. Essentially, an excise tax is an adjustment and penalty for greater contribution of damage. For instance, if you drive more, shouldn’t you have to pay more to maintain the roads? Most people understand the need for this tax; without it, we wouldn’t have this infrastructure.

Smokestack Industry Fuel Gas Taxes
Photo: flickr/senorcodo

Like all things political, the funds get redirected to all sorts of “special” programs. About 60% of federal funds go directly to road and bridge building. The other 40% seems to be sent to local municipalities for the purposes of pet projects, which may include (but is not limited to) roads.

There are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure.
–Former Transportation Secretary, Mary Peters (Link)

What’s happening here is that federal funds are being redirected back to districts after Congress gets their hold on the excise tax. Instead of spending on the federal level with federal funds, earmarks eat away at the excise tax. Ironically, senators and congressman already see a benefit via state gas taxes. The federal redirection of funds is just an added bonus. An estimated 30 cents per gallon is fed back to the state (e.g., Iowa) for the purposes of:

State highways maintained by the Iowa DOT are financed with funds that are principally derived from vehicle fuel taxes and registration fees collected and allocated by the state and federal governments.
–Iowa DOT (Link)

Both state and federal taxes for fuel directly charge corporations and individuals for their use. I bet you and I could both use the extra 50 cents per gallon that we’re paying in taxes, but it would not properly contribute to the maintenance and security of our infrastructure. Albeit, we could probably do without the earmarks for special interest projects in local municipalities.

Our tax code is missing an essential element: Carbon

Unfortunately, the current tax regime doesn’t account for other, indirect negative externalities that are involved with burning fossil fuels. Many developed nations attempt to account for these indirect damages.

Norway is a major oil producing country, but the average Norwegian has to shell out $9.97 for a gallon of gas, more than twice the U.S. average. Norway doesn’t subsidize fuel at the pump; instead, it uses oil profits to fund free college education and infrastructure development. (Link)

Photo: flickr/Andrew Hitchcock
Los Angeles in a smog, pollutant cloud. Photo: flickr/Andrew Hitchcock

In Norway, steep gas prices are primarily due to two taxes: road and CO2 taxes. After that, the revenue generated goes to support free education in Norway — creating a highly-educated populace that can intelligently vote and participate in democracy. These are some of the positive parts in expensive taxes.

But there also more nefarious company practices that could be accounted for by taxes. For instance, while BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cost the company around $13 billion, the environmental devastation and future wildlife concerns are still unknown. A carbon tax could account for this damage, too. The threat of terrorism and instability in global markets forces companies to explore and drill in safer zones that are further from developed areas. But safety has a cost, as transporting, leaks, spills, and CO2 emissions in the pumping process is already tremendously expensive.

America subsidizes heavy oil use, at the detriment of long-term stability considering major environmental impacts (i.e., climate change). This policy stands in direct contrast to many European countries that prioritize the environment and recognize the painful consequences that are soon to occur if we don’t change course. Further gas taxes alone would likely reduce consumption and begin to correct our course towards a more environmentally friendly economy.

What should we do now

The leading argument against additional taxation (primarily carbon taxes) is because the economy could suffer. By placing a uniform tax on the fossil fuel use that’s contributing to climate change, a difficult consequence may occur: business may slow. Critics point out that the economic ramifications for increasing the excise tax and introducing a CO2 emissions tax are dangerous – they affect average Americans and vulnerable small businesses.

…higher prices would consume a greater share of income for low-income households than for higher-income households, because low-income households generally spend a larger percentage of their income on emission-intensive goods. Similarly, workers and investors in emission-intensive industries, who would see the largest decrease in demand for their products, would be likely to bear relatively large burdens as the economy adjusted to the tax. (Link)

Most of the evidence suggests that if we ignore the signs and continue our current fossil-fuel driven life, we’re in trouble, but the solution is murky. Our current paradigm is to burn and travel as fast and frequent as possible to deliver goods with efficiency and at a low-cost to consumers. Tweaking this simple equation may provide long-term benefit to our environment and future as humans, while hurting individuals in the short-term. More importantly, lower-income populations would be at particular risk to these changes.

We’re at a fork in the road as a country and world:

  • Should we do anything about climate change?
  • Should we admit that our consumerism contributes to spiking CO2 rates?
  • What happens if we don’t act now?

Unlike apocalyptic predictions from moneyed interests, a carbon tax likely wouldn’t decimate the US economy. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which acts as a non-partisan group for Congresses budgets, says this:

For example, in 2011, CBO estimated that a cap-and-trade program that would have set a price of $20 in 2012 to emit a ton of CO2 (and increased that price by 5.6 percent each year thereafter) would raise a total of nearly $1.2 trillion during its first decade. In addition, total U.S. emissions of CO2 would be about 8 percent lower over that period than they would be without the policy, CBO estimated. (Link)

Production costs would increase and possibly affect the total output; moreover, the prices paid at the supermarket would likely increase. All forms of consumption would decrease, and as the CBO statistics suggest, an 8 percent decrease in emissions would be witnessed.

Like much of Europe, where you are likely paying double what you pay in America for gas, fossil fuel use is reduced. The cost is burdensome — in a good way. We need to begin exploring alternative energies and production paradigms that don’t tax our environment as much. In the mean time, we need to start taxing fuel at higher rates and redirect some funds to lower-income families as a fuel credit (essentially, becoming an upper-middle, high income, business tax).

Below is a video from Apple. They’ve recently been featured by Greenpeace for their all alternative energy power sources for data centers. While companies can and will adjust — innovating for the future — we should make this shift economically advantageous, while punishing the polluters.

The future is just too fragile without significant changes.

Filed Under: Social Justice Tagged With: Apple, carbon, climate change, CO2, emissions, environment, fossil fuels, gas, gasoline, greenpeace, prices, taxes

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