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What I Love About Reading

By Frugaling 11 Comments

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Books

When I was younger, you couldn’t pay me to read a book. My parents read to me as a child, but in middle and high school, I was a Sparknotes reader; preferably, about 15-30 minutes before exams.

Homer’s Odyssey sat mostly unread. I was supposed to have spent the summer before my freshman year of high school analyzing the prose and coming up with something intelligent to say. Instead, I read the first 75 pages and called it good.

Reading wasn’t something I naturally enjoyed doing. It felt boring and stuffy. While I enjoyed the cover artwork, the text never enticed me to stay until the end. Ironically, I loved purchasing new — open it up, bend the spine, smell the glue and paper, and see those perfect 90-degree corners — books. But again, they sat mostly unfinished.

Something clicked in college. Suddenly, I enjoyed turning the pages of a good book of fiction. I wanted to read more. And for the last eight to nine years, I’ve become further engrossed and in love with the act of reading.

Now 27, I want to read even more. A lot more. And I’m not talking about finding a good book to read before bed or in between classes or to start my day. I’m talking about reading for entire days — hours upon hours!

I want to get swept away in a non-fiction subject or in fictional characters, plots, and narratives. I want to be amazed by others’ writing and ideas; most of all, I want to learn and hone my own writing abilities through reading. I learn through talented authors. They’re my role models.

The act has become this thing I lust after. Inside, I say to the world, “Get out of my way, leave me alone, stop talking to me. I need to read!” I read like there’s no tomorrow, because I’m not sure if there is. I read because there’s something I need to learn and would be remiss not to know it. More and more pages turned, pulled, flipped. Hours pass uninterrupted; frankly, I prefer it that way.

As I reflect on my habit, I realize what I love most about it. The classic book is a deep dive into a subject — whether fiction or not. Inside this world — and unlike the Internet — nothing pops up. Nothing pokes or aggravates. Nothing makes suggestions. There aren’t click-bait or artificial headlines. I don’t break from the reading to click and subscribe. I don’t scroll down to get back to the content. Ralph Nader says the only time to escape advertisements might be sleep, but books still provide an oasis.

Frugality is much easier with a good book. In fact, reading might be the lowest cost of entertainment on Earth. Consuming television and movies is cheaper than ever, but remains more expensive than going and getting a book.

For instance, a movie might have a 90-minute runtime and cost $10 to buy. That’s roughly a dollar for every 10 minutes. Meanwhile the purchase price of a book might be comparable — say $10 — but the runtime is magnificent. Pick up a lengthy tome like Stephen King’s 11/22/63 at 849 pages, and you’ll be reading for a 20-30 hours. It’s pennies to read every hour — enjoyment at a fraction of the price. And this doesn’t even account for public libraries!

Living simply and frugally is easier with a good book. These hours spent avoiding material consumption for knowledge, empathy, and understanding. And best of all, it won’t leave your wallet reeling.

So, what will you read this summer?

Filed Under: Save Money Tagged With: Books, cost, Entertainment, Film, media, Movies, Read, Reading, Television

Public-Private Partnerships Pillage Graduate Students’ Fixed-Income Stipends

By Frugaling 2 Comments

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dailyiowan

Graduate students are a vulnerable population

This has been the craziest two weeks of graduate school and it all started with a blog post I wrote on Sunday, November 29. It was entitled, “How Leases Trap College Students.” Therein, I talked about my graduate student housing on the University of Iowa campus. When I first arrived, it was $435. But then, a private company, Balfour Beatty, came in and demolished the subsidized housing. They built a lavish, $31 million complex.

Since then, the prices have skyrocketed about 130% since the university – a public institution – sold off the rights to build and manage a property to a private company, Balfour Beatty. Next year’s 1-bedroom leases are now going for $999. You can get better prices in New York City. The company has published all sorts of reasons and information for the prices and increases, but they never talk about the big difference: profit motive. Now, graduate students cannot afford graduate student housing.

How do graduate students contribute on campus?

Graduate students often teach, research, and assist universities. For example, I teach two undergraduate courses, conduct research, provide technical assistance, and work on special projects with faculty in my college. These efforts – for 20 hours per week – allow me to receive a tuition scholarship and stipend. After taxes, that stipend equals about $18,720.

Despite the need for graduate students and an economic engine for doctoral graduates, housing them doesn’t tend to be a moneymaker. With only $18,720 per year, they’re limited as to where they can live without taking federal aid (student loans). Most schools have used affordable graduate housing as a benefit for incoming students. Like any incentive package at work, low-cost housing attracts the talented, financially sensible, and respects the dignity of those who contribute to the milieu.

How much money can you make from grad students?

While the University of Iowa certainly has a drive for income, profiting off of graduate students isn’t the purpose. When they managed their own properties, they made enough to maintain the property. With this private company on campus, the paradigm has shifted. The profit motive was back with a vengeance.

This move towards privatization on college campuses is little highlighted or understood. Frankly, I don’t know anyone who’s talking about it – or knows about it. But the reality is that more and more public institutions are deciding to parcel out their public resources – taxpayer funded – to an elite group of market barons.

Today, I wanted to take an opportunity to break down this problem and explain how students are financially affected by privatization using Balfour Beatty. Over the next decades, if universities continue to embrace privatization, students will be holding record levels of debt. For graduate students, it all starts with their rent/housing.

Lease public resources, make it someone else’s problem profit

Unfortunately for universities, graduate student housing isn’t a moneymaker. They are hard to maintain, keep risk on the table, and place debt liability in the hands of administrators. On campuses nationwide, universities are beginning to “lease” their land to private companies, as they cannot sell public resources. These leases can be signed for decades and lead to magnificent profits for companies involved.

When a private company comes in to build new residences, building, etc. on public universities, the two organizations are signing what’s called a public-private partnership. I’m getting sort of wonky today, so bear with me. A public-private partnership is when a “private party provides a public service or project and assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the project.”

Effectively, public universities who embrace this model are offsetting their risk onto a private partner. They can suddenly fire handfuls of expensive employees who provide public services. These employees ordinarily require pensions and other retirement benefits, quality healthcare, and reasonable paychecks. The replacement is simple: smaller staffs, fewer benefits, and pay cuts. It’s all for one goal: maximize profits for a select few and pillage the fixed-income graduate students.

Administrators love public-private partnerships!

Many administrators say that graduate student housing isn’t a core mission, but undergraduate housing is a core mission because universities make boatloads of profits off undergrads. Here’s a University of Iowa administrator excitedly explaining how university-managed residence halls make sense (but not graduate student housing?):

“Stange said the Petersen Residence Hall, a $53 million, 10-story building under construction and scheduled to open in time for the fall 2015 semester, will house about 500 first- and second-year undergraduates.” (source)

Despite 90% occupancy rates and a population in need (many of which were people of color, international students, young families, and people with disabilities) in old, university-controlled graduate student housing, administrators decide to spin the story:

“Hawkeye Court is at the end of its useful life,” Stange said. “They were well-maintained as best as they could. They just were not meeting needs of our current population.” (source)

Worsening the problem is the added classism and gentrification risk to these privately constructed and managed apartments. Poor people need not apply:

These buildings are intended to create “an exclusive community designed to meet the lifestyle needs of today’s student.” (source)

Calling attention to the pillaging of graduate students

For a 1-bedroom at the “exclusive” Aspire at West Campus at the University of Iowa — remember, intended for graduate students — you’ll spend $1,000 per month. Over the course of a 5-year Ph.D. (some take longer), you’d be spending around $60,000 on rent along — if prices stayed consistent. Again, that’s a generously low total.

With my graduate student stipend of $18,720 per year, I’d be spending 64% of my income on rent alone. That’s why I’ve decided to move out for the coming year. But the gentrification and heartbreak to those looking for affordable housing has been finished. The University of Iowa signed a bad deal with no deal to renegotiate. Heck, administrators didn’t even know how much the private company would charge for rent!

Now, graduate students are stuck with bill or forced to get out. That’s just not right. The university messed up.

Spreading alarm and stirring up media attention

Four days ago, when a group of us affected students began emailing and contacting administrators to tell them they have a major problem on their hands, they told us to go away. They told us it wasn’t the university’s problem; in fact, we needed to bring our concerns to the private company, Balfour Beatty. Here’s what one administrator said:

“I can sit down with [the students], but the strongest voice will come from the people who will or won’t rent from [Balfour Beatty] based on rates.”

What that administrator seems to be implying is that he would sit down with us, but we might as well talk to the company. Picture that: a bunch of students marching into a multinational company trying to negotiate. That’s ridiculous.

Well, we weren’t particularly happy with that answer. So, we kept writing statements to politicians, lawyers, administrators, the president’s office, media outlets. In three days, we had three front page stories in three separate newspapers.

IMG_1323

IMG_1330

Suddenly, the University of Iowa administration had a PR disaster on their hands. And magically, that tone of changed among admin/staff at the highest echelons of the university. Now, the president wanted to meet with us because he cared about this issue. My how they reversed their tone rapidly!

But taking it from PR nightmare to significant change is a different story. While the administration debates their next actions, this story has massive implications.

When prices skyrocket, that means students with disabilities must bear the costs. When young families with children feel the cost, they must move further from campus. When international students trust the university’s marketing of this on-campus housing, they find an awful price and unmanageable lease.

Balfour Beatty has a reputation for profit over people

The company’s buildings have gone viral — trumpeting their privately constructed and managed properties across the country. Just look at where they’ve gone beyond Iowa:

  • University of Houston-Victoria
  • University of Nevada-Reno
  • Georgia State
  • Temple University
  • George Mason University
  • Texas A&M
  • UNC-Charlotte
  • University of Sussex
  • Tarleton State University
  • San Diego State University
  • Florida Atlantic University
  • Winston-Salem State University
  • Appalachian State University
  • University of South Florida-Tampa
  • Cornish College of the Arts
  • University of California Riverside
  • George Mason University
  • University of Texas-Dallas

Every place they go, an area is gentrified, low-income students are forced out and a community is transformed. When the profit motive takes over non-profit campuses, the results can be harrowing. In fact, students at the University of Nevada, Reno tried to rebel against Balfour Beatty once before, but the company wasn’t willing to renegotiate. The solutions are murky once a contract is signed, too. Only one thing can be done: universities must resist the drive to privatize public resources and everyone should know that market barons like Balfour Beatty don’t represent students’ interests — they represent their own.

Now, hundreds are awaiting the University of Iowa to respond. Thousands are affected. And tens of thousands are seeing the consequences of short-term economic gains that have long-term effects on students.

University of Iowa, we are waiting for your answer. We will be civil, but never silent.

Filed Under: Social Justice Tagged With: graduate students, Income, iowa, media, money, newspapers, Profit, public resources, public-private partnership, Salary, stipends, university, university of iowa

Who Are The Real Job Creators?

By Frugaling 9 Comments

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Office Space Boss Are Job Creators

The term starts with classic media manipulation

For too long, big businesses and media conglomerates have propagated messages that suggest that only wealthy individuals can be graced with that moniker: “job creators.” The time has come to reappropriate and annex this title from the privileged minority.

News outlets are masterminds at twisting words to fit this greater script. Their training must be incredible, because they’re naturals at it. The trite, overused, and vapid phrases support a message that “wealthy people create jobs.”

The wealthiest elite stole the term, job creators. Instead of saying “rich,” “wealthy,” or “top one-percent,” the term puts a positive, flattering spin to scary inequality. What could possibly be wrong with job creators? Why would we want to discourage job creation? We need to help these job creators do their job — create jobs! (You can find beautiful examples of this media manipulation on Fox.)

This widely circulated logical fallacy has long been hurting the masses. Billionaires are often seen as the lubricant for our great American society. The dream that we are born into is promoted by their unique skill set, intellect, and economic wherewithal. Where would we be as a country, people, and world without the wealthiest people creating jobs? What would the world look like if we just removed the economic power that is trapped within the economic elite — our infamous one-percenters?

Started from the bottom now we here…

Let’s clear up this myth real quick. Below, I have ten (off the top of my head) of the greatest entrepreneurs of the last few decades. None of them were billionaires or part of the wealthy elite prior to creating thousands of jobs.

1. Steve Jobs (Apple)
2. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
3. Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX)
4. Larry Page (Google)
5. Sergey Brin (Google)
6. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
7. Sean Parker (Napster, Spotify, Facebook)
8. Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com)
9. Howard Schultz (Starbucks)
10. Kevin Plank (Under Armour)

Steve Jobs was a job creator and entrepreneur
Steve Jobs unveils the latest generation iPhone. Photo: Matthew Yohe.

There’s no doubt that we’ve benefited as a world and country from these entrepreneurs. But to suggest that their billionaire status created jobs would be naive and dangerous. They created jobs through grit, timing, and intellect, but it came before the money.

Jobs was tripping on LSD and going through spiritual journeys, and then segued to the computer industry.

“[Steve Jobs] never finished college, dropping out after 18 months to take random, creative classes (such as that calligraphy, which he said is one of the main reasons why the graphics look so great on Apple devices). He was dropping in on these classes and just grabbing as much knowledge as possible without actually getting a grade in them. During the course of that he slept on the floor of friends’ dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local temple. (Source)”

He wasn’t wealthy, just a hippie looking to find salvation in the next great technology.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were mere graduate students at Stanford University when their lives were forever changed. They weren’t rich, just motivated entrepreneurs.

Who are the real job creators?

We have entered a centralized, monopolized, anti-trust-ridden epoch where only a select few companies, organizations, and people control the dialogue. Fox News shouldn’t be able to manipulate the American people into thinking that wealthy people are job creators. And the short answer: they’re not.

Today, we must reclaim the title of “job creators” to their rightful owners: consumers and small business entrepreneurs. Every time we choose to search through Google, check/update our Facebook status, click and clack over our Apple keyboards, and slip on that Under Armour for a run, we are making an active, consumer-based choice. We are supporting jobs for that company and industry. That purchase and usage is our choice; ultimately, we create and support those jobs through this spending.

Trickle-down economics doesn’t work, and neither does trickle-down job creation. Let’s get our title back.

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: Apple, Business, Consumer, Consumerism, Entrepreneurs, Fox, Google, Income Inequality, Job Creators, media, Microsoft, News, Small Businesses, Steve Jobs

Step-By-Step Guide To Automate Twitter And Gain Followers Using IFTTT

By Frugaling 15 Comments

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Twitter Fail Whale Image

Just a few weeks ago I was looking at the Twitter streams of those I follow, and I noticed something strange. They seemed to be tweeting all the time! Shocked and dismayed by this overwork that everyone must be doing, I decided to inquire from one of the best bloggers in the business, Jeremy Biberdorf (of Modest Money). He quickly assuaged my worries and introduced me to the world of Twitter automation.

Tweet For Traffic, Money

There’s a stupid simple fact about Twitter: The more you tweet, the more you’ll gain followers and visitors to your site. As a writer and blogger, gaining these numbers will be both motivating and rewarding. The fact is that most writers are fighting off obscurity. When you realize that some people are actually reading your material, it can be a wonderful feeling.

The problem is that you likely don’t want to stay up all day and night tweeting. Not only is that not the best use of your time, it can feel demoralizing and repetitive to keep sharing. This is where automation comes in.

iPhone IFTTT automate twitter
IFTTT on iPhone

How Can You Automate Twitter?

As Modest Money’s founder and owner was saying, the busy Twitter users you may follow are probably automating their process. And I can tell you from first-hand experience, by creating a regular tweeting schedule, I’ve seen terrific increases in traffic.

After learning about this, I researched a couple options. The two major players are Dlvr.it and IFTTT.com. Dlvr.it offers a variety of professional grade options for sharing your own website’s articles and others. You can schedule the delivery of your articles and track the statistics associated with them (i.e., how many people clicked on a specific tweet?).

But the one I recommend is IFTTT.com. The website is an acronym for If This Then That. Every single automated ability asks you to choose one option (If this) and then you can choose what to do with it. Not only is it free, but it also offers an incredible platform for automation across technologies. Snap a picture from your phone? You can automatically blog it. Write a new blog post, now you can email friends, share it on Facebook, and even tweet it out – all free!

Automate Your Blog, Tweets

If you’ve made it this far through the article, you’re probably interested in some direction. The following portion is a specific “how to” for automating your website and turning it into a Twitter machine.

The first step is signing up for an account on IFTTT.com. Click here to join. After you’ve confirmed and registered for the site, you’ll be brought to a dashboard that shows all of your current recipes (IFTTTs). This virtual hub is a great way to glance at statistics and “Create a Recipe.”

IFTTT Dashboard Screenshot Automate Twitter
IFTTT.com Dashboard Screenshot

Here’s where the fun begins. Once you click to create a new recipe, you’ll be given the IFTTT option. Click the blue, underlined link that says, “this.” The page should automatically move down to “Choose A Trigger Channel.” IFTTT is full of trigger (this) options and makes it an exciting platform to work with.

IFTTT Trigger Channel to Automate Twitter
IFTTT.com Trigger Channel – Select RSS “Feed”

For this step, we want to choose feed (the RSS icon). By selecting feed, IFTTT will know that the automation process starts with your website’s publication of stories. The page will automatically scroll down further and you will be given two options. Choose “New feed item.” For me, I would navigate to my site’s feed, copy it, and paste it into the box shown below.

IFTTT Trigger RSS Feed Automate Twitter
IFTTT Trigger RSS Feed

At this point, you’re nearly there! By selecting “Create Trigger,” the page will have you select would you’d like to do with it. You might assume that you’d select Twitter for your “action channel,” but you shouldn’t. If you want to include Twitter @ symbols, you’ll need to choose Buffer. Buffer is an application that can take your automated tweets and space them out over time and give you in-depth statistics on the success of certain stories. If you don’t have your account attached to IFTTT or haven’t ever used Buffer, it will ask to pair the accounts. You’ll need to register with your Twitter account on Buffer and then link to IFTTT. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to select “Add to Buffer.”

Choose Buffer App to Automate Twitter via IFTTT
IFTTT Buffer App Choice

When you are ready to “Add,” click the entry title and entry URL area and add “via @YOURTWITTERNAMEHERE.” Click “Create Action” and then “Create Recipe.” Once you hit that, you’re all done! You’ve created your very first automated Twitter recipe. Your RSS feed will update IFTTT, which will send a notification to Buffer for Twitter publication. While it sounds complicated – technically, it is – the process will save you hours and hours over the course of your site.

Sharing Is Caring

Beyond automating your own Twitter and site, people often automate other people’s websites and blogs. Sharing is caring when it comes to this. When you share someone else’s blog automatically, they will be inclined to share your work and visit your site. Do them a favor and you may just get one in return. If not, it makes for good karma.

Hope this little how to and tutorial helps! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment!

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: apps, automate, buffer, gain twitter followers, ifttt, Make Money, media, social networking, twitter

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