EnRock

Travelling to Haiti

2008-05-08T04:32:38Z

Day 1. Who would have guessed that getting to Haiti could be so difficult? And not because of difficult roads, or Haitian customs but the airline companies. At least we made it, and the drive in Haiti made it all worth the hassle.

The problems started in LA where our flight was delayed by more than two hours. Of course this meant we missed the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Port-Au-Prince. This was a problem because there is only one flight out of Fort Lauderdale each day. To make matters worse, our ride in Haiti was a local pastor who couldn’t have picked us up on the next day, Sunday, so we would have had to wait till Monday. Our one week vacation was starting to look pretty short. Plus it would cost us an additional $150US for him to rent the van again. Compound this with the fact that we couldn’t convince the airport pay phones to call into Haiti to warn them of our challenge despite trying credit cards, change, phone cards, and the operator. And did I mention that our flight was supposed to leave at 11pm so our kids we’re extremely tired and frustrated as we moved from line to line so late at night?

In the end things worked out fine. We were able to catch my Parents, who were supposed to be arriving in Haiti a few hours after us, before they left their hotel in the US to let them know what was happening. Then, while we were flying from LA, the airline took the liberty of re-booking us on a flight out of Miami and paying for a shuttle bus to take us from Fort Lauderdale to the Miami airport. The only question left was how to convey this message into Haiti where the last they would have heard was that we couldn’t make our flight? Making us of our “emergency” contact system we left a message on my parents phone in Canada. Sure enough they remembered to check it before leaving Port-Au-Prince and drove back to the airport where we found them waiting for us when we arrived.

Our first impression of the Haiti airport was very good. Compared to our last visit, where there was only a single stall, open air bathroom (yes you could sit on the toilet and watch people getting off the plane) this time there large private bathrooms in an air conditioned airport that looked quite new. In-fact there was even a significant amount of work done towards two new jet bridges and connecting passageways and escalators. Very modern looking indeed. In-fact the entire airport process seemed very North American. The Customs agents didn’t speak English so they just didn’t ask any questions. Luggage pickup was very sane compared to our last trip and there were a number of free luggage carts available. There were a few baggage handlers hanging around outside the airport but they were a lot less pushy than I remembered, and I didn’t see groups of people placing their hand on every bag like last time!

The city of Port is an experience to say the least. Side by side is sandwiched some of the most impoverished people in the world, with some reasonable modern amenities. Cellphones and cellphone advertisements are everywhere. Many people carry at least two phones for some reason. Houses are stacked on top of each other, overlapping, and often barely have room to walk in between. In other places are large commercial bank buildings. Near the government buildings there was a very nice park with green grass, fields, and a number of pieces of playground equipment. There is people pretty much everywhere. Motorbikes, pedestrians, cars, and tap-taps freely mingle on the roadways. Surprisingly people to stop at the stoplights, although its not unusual to see three or four vehicles plus motorcycles squeezed in side-by-side where we would have a couple of lanes. People are selling things of every curb, nook and cranny. Driving is chaotic to say the least. Driving on the right is only a rough guideline and is regularly broken. It’s not unusual to see someone driving down the wrong side of a divided highway even if there are cement barriers to separate the traffic! Honking is constant as it is used as a method for warning other drivers and pedestrians that you are going to speed by them with probably only a couple of inches of space. You would definitely get a broken arm here if you held your hand out the vehicle window.

The roads do seem somewhat improved. We spent a lot of time on a road that had been recently repaved with proper gutters and slope. In fact the road from Port-Au-Prince to Jacmel was truly amazing! It starts off along the ocean shore and then heads into the mountains. Slowly, it winds gently back and forth as you work your way over the range. There is a section along the top of athe range where the road is literally driving along the top of a sharp ridge where the bank slopes away on both sides. This gives a vary impressive view of the beautiful but rough countryside. It is pretty green right now as there has been a lot of rain the last couple of years.

Unfortunately the hired driver doesn’t give us much time to enjoy the view. The driving is from gas to brakes to gas. You are either accelerating or slowing. We would regularly make passes around corners, abrupt turns to avoid pedestrians, or sharp turns just to make a corner. Our oldest daughter sat in the front seat and talked the entire trip. The locals were impressed (I think). Unfortunately our youngest daughter, who was sitting on my lap of course, wasn’t as lucky. She made it three quarters of the way before letting her lunch go all over me. We’ll at least the driver was considerate enough to slow down for a minute while we tried to collect the mess (with our hands) into a bag. Although I thought the persistent awful smell might trigger my own stomach it seemed to hold out ok. A little bit of rain helped keep us all cool, and the smell a little fresher.

When we arrived at Jacmel, much later than anticipated, it was now dark. This in not an ideal situation. Jacmel is one of Haiti’s nicest cities but we are still in a van full of obviously international travellers. At one point a large group of partiers flooded the road in front of us as they rushed down from one celebration to another. Yes, this is Haiti’s party city and these are the kind of crowds that one is generally advised to avoid. Fortunately, by now the dark generally conceals our identity as we wait for the partiers to slowly wander off to their next event.

It is with much relief that we finally arrive at the Pastors house, 22 hours after we began our travels. The power is out in the city at the time and so they have lit oil lamps to show us around. There is a large meal ready and waiting for us including Carrots, beats, onions, a green vegetable mix, fried meat, lettuce salad and of course rice and bean sauce. To help make us feel at home they had even made some home made french fries.

The Pastors home is very nice and brings back fond memories of traveling in tropical climates. It has windows that don’t close, which allows the sounds and smells of Haiti to wander at their will through the house. The tile floors feel cool on our bare feet, and the open veranda allows the wind to refresh us. With flushing toilets, and a dripping cold shower, we feel quite at home.

Sleep comes quickly that night as we, and the kids, are more than exhausted and we have a long day ahead of us.

Vacation In Haiti

2008-04-25T03:05:31Z

We’ll it’s been a long time since I posted and part of the reason was our families vacation in Haiti. What I’d like to do for the next series is post a summary of our days activities to give you a glimpse of what we saw. This post will be a summary of why we choose to take our family, kids and all, to the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

The first thing most people ask us when they heard we were going to Haiti was “Are you going on a mission trip?” The answer for us was a resounding no. We were going there for our vacation, plain and simple. You see we’ve done a trip to Haiti before, we’ve done the resorting vacation, and we’ve done the adventure vacation. I can assure you that we have much more memories, and much fonder memories, of our last trip to Haiti than any of the others. Not that we were going to be lounging around while people starved around us, we would be looking for ways to connect and help out where we could. It’s making the connection with others, and perhaps making one persons life a little easier, that have made the past trips so meaningful.

The second thing most people wanted to ask us is if it was a mission trip. The answer is a resounding yes. Part of focusing on our life’s priorities is not doing things that don’t have a purpose and doing more of the things that move us to our goals. The trip to Haiti was one of these things. We had a very specific purpose in mind: To introduce our oldest daughter to another culture, and to show her poverty first hand. We hoped that this would re-enforce in her a heart of compassion for those in difficult situations and help her appreciate how fortunate we are. You see we have spent a lot of time talking about poor people, we’ve written many letters to her sponsor child, we regularly pray for her sponsor child and her family, we’ve helped our daughter give money, clothes, and food to the poor but she has never really seen what it means to be poor.

Our secondary goal was to begin establishing our own relationships with people in Haiti so we could better understand some of the countries social issues, so we could continue to return to Haiti in the future, and so we would have connections through which to help others.

But why Haiti? That’s simple. First, there is a lot of poverty in Haiti which provides ample opportunities for people of all ages, skills, and financial ability to show compassion. Second, it’s very close and relatively inexpensive to get to. Third, our Church will be sponsoring a couple to begin building a program in Haiti to employ orphans (after graduation) while teaching them practical skills (like agriculture and literacy) to be put in practice in the local villages in a Jesus focused environment. The more we know and understand about Haiti the better advocates we will be for their work. Finally we choose Haiti for the heat. Hey, I said this was a vacation right?

One thing I am going to do throughout these posts is focus on the positive. I don’t wan’t to give you the false impression that there isn’t a lot of poverty because there is. And yes, I’m aware of the recent food riots. What I would like to do is encourage you that there is hope, and that there are many ways that you could be part of the solution.

Use Negative Feedback to turn Critics into Supporters

2008-04-25T02:29:42Z

I used to think I handled negative feedback pretty well. And I use the term negative feedback pretty loosely. Most of my experience receiving negative feedback has demonstrated that it is really poorly delivered, both in timing and content, which probably makes it closer to criticism or even an insult than to negative feedback. I think this little process is a great way to take advantage of negative feedback, no matter how delivered, and turn it into an actionable task that builds your rapport.

In the past I used to accept the criticism, perhaps with a half-hearted thank-you, and then try to mine the tidbit of truth from it to help me move forward. Seems logical, and it appeared to work reasonably well.

What I have begun to learn lately is that there is an even better way. You see, I’ve always believed that there is a grain of truth to such feedback but now I see that the truth is rarely present in the persons initial comments. So attempting to extract anything from this brief conversation is next to useless and suggestions that come from this process are more likely to be internally generated than to actually arise from the other person. Therefore any action coming out of it, although it may be positive, will not usually address the real concern.

Now you have to give the critic some slack. Most people delivering feedback are (a) upset and (b) uncomfortable delivering it. Providing useful feedback is not something that seems to be taught in school. The question is, what can we do to help them get their point across?

I now try to do four things. First, I ask some gentle probing questions. Second, I think it over. Third, I go back to the person and ask if I really understand the problem. Finally, I make some change to show I really value their feedback.

1. Gentle Probing

After the person has let me have it, I politely ask some simple follow up questions. Some generic examples would be:

What makes you think that?
How did you come to that conclusion?
What did I say or do that made you feel this way?

The idea is to try to get to the heart of the problem. Does the person not like your manners? Was this just final straw in a series of complaints they haven’t told you before? Has there been a misunderstanding? I never defend myself at this point as I am only trying to really understand the persons complaint.

2. Mull it Over

Then I wait; typically a day or two while I mull it over. If the initial conversation was reasonably successful there should now be something for me to chew on. I’m still not trying to look for solutions or justifications, but just to understand the problem.

3. Confirm the Problem

Once I feel I have boiled the problem down to its core I go back to the person and ask them. I would say something like:

“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day. What I think your saying is _____ . Does that sound right?”

If I’ve got it right I am now in a place to make some really positive change. The great thing is, by this point I have usually already begun to win a supporter. First of all, accepting their feedback and doing some initial questioning demonstrates I am serious about understanding the issue. Then, when I go back to them, they are typically surprised. This is when they realize that I take their feedback extremely seriously and really want to use it for the better. Almost always, this conversation is much more relaxed and more insightful.

4. Make a Change

The final step is to consider the meat of the feedback and to make some change that reflects the criticism. If you accept my initial premise that there is always some grain of truth, then you should be able to find something to improve. In many cases the communication up to this point may have resolved the issue, but it is still wise to do something to further clarify the issue.

What I’ve found is that most people are impressed with the respectful response, and the consideration given. I also think they unconsciously feel better because I have helped them understand what is really bothering them. These three things will often work together to move the critic toward being a supporter.

An Example

I’d like to finish with one example from my work with my Church board. One Sunday, just prior to my playing in the Sunday band, I ran into a person I’d known for some time. I could see they were uncomfortable with the small talk and quickly made the following comment.

I’ll just say this now. What you sent out as minutes from the last board meeting was useless. It looked to me like an agenda. If that’s what your going to send out you might as well not send out anything.

You can see right away the timing was terrible; I played awful that Sunday as I struggled to get the thoughts out of my head. The feedback was very pointed, critical, and lacked any actionable detail. Fortunately, I had been mulling over the ideas in the post recently and just barely had the wearwithall to bite my tongue and ask a few simple questions:

What did you see that made you think it looked like an agenda?
What would you like to see in the minutes?

I missed it at first, but as I began to think it over the next day, I realized we had recently made a change to the meetings and were now including a consent agenda item as the first piece of business. For those not familiar with board work, or Roberts Rules of Order, this is simply a list of recent report and actions that the board is accepting without any discussion. They are typically just routine business items. As I thought about it I began to realize what was probably happening. First this person saw the word “agenda” in the minutes. Then they saw a list of reports that had no discussion noted in the minutes. Their conclusion: The board was hiding the details of the discussion!

Once I realized this I gave the person a quick phone call and told them I had been thinking over their feedback. They immediately began to soften. I asked if it related to the first item and sure enough it did. It didn’t take long to be able to confirm that this was actually the source of the problem. A simple misunderstanding about what was taking place at the board meetings. Once I described the consent agenda, and explained that we use it to give us more time to tackle the more important issues they really began to come around. Finally I ended by committing to describing this process in the next board minutes so others would understand as well. This final commitment on my part was just the icing on the cake to demonstrate that I took the feedback seriously and wanted to ensure the issue was properly dealt with.

So what started out as someone believing I was leading a group of people to hide information from the members turned out to be a simple misunderstanding, but gave me a great opportunity to demonstrate our true concern and commitment to consider all members feedback. That is, one critic was converted to a supporter. At least for now…

Conclusion

I am now beginning to look forward to criticism no matter how poorly delivered. These ideas have demonstrated to me that any feedback is an enormous opportunity for improvement and relationship building that should never be wasted.

Should I buy a Mutual Fund or an ETF?

2008-04-25T02:31:26Z

Many people ask me when they should by mutual funds vs ETF’s and I haven’t yet seen a good answer to this question so I’ll try to write one here.

Before I answer the question, lets compare the two and make sure we’re talking about the same thing.

Mutual Funds

Mutual funds are the traditional choice that most people would be familiar with. In general they are easier to purchase as pretty much any investment account will allow it. In some cases you are restricted to funds from certain banks or companies which often excludes any worthwhile mutual funds.

Mutual funds come with a variety of loads (front-end, back-end, no load, etc) that may impact your trading cost. In the environment today, I don’t consider anything but no-load funds for which there will be no transaction costs! With the large array of mutual funds available today I can’t see any reasons to use a loaded fund.

On important thing to note about mutual funds is their internal expenses, indicated as MER, are usually higher. Typically they are in the 1.5-2.5% range, although there are some index funds as low as 0.3% with some restrictions. The MER will come straight off the gross return the fund is able to generate, reducing the return available to the investor.

There are generally two types of mutual funds: active and passively managed. Actively managed mutual funds, which I wouldn’t use, pay a manager to pick stocks to try and outperform the market (but usually don’t) and are typically are on the high end of the spectrum. Passively managed, or index mutual funds simply track some index, pretty much guaranteeing the investor the same return as the index less the small MER and some tracking error. Because there is no manager to pay their MER’s are near the low end.

Mutual fund prices are not traded on exchanges like stocks, their prices is typically only updated at the end of the day, and there are no advanced transaction types (like short selling, or stop losses) available.

Finally, because mutual funds are not traded on traditional exchanges, you will most likely only be able to purchase mutual funds from companies in the same country as you. If your like me and don’t live in the US, then most of the available mutual funds are not available to you.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

ETF’s are traded on stock exchanges as you would a normal stock. For this reason they can only be purchased in investment accounts that allow stock purchases. As such you will pay a transaction commission whenever you buy and sell these, just as if you bought or sold a stock.

ETF’s also have internal expenses, which is also reported as MER, but these are typically lower. An ETF can be as low as 0.1% although typically they are in the 0.2 to 0.5% range. You do need to watch out for higher MERs, especially for ETF’s not on US exchanges, as some ETF’s have MER’s as high or higher than mutual funds.

Because ETF’s are traded on stock exchanges it is easy for non-US investors to purchase US ETF’s, as long as their investment account allows purchasing of stocks on US exchanges. This opens up a huge array of additional options for the investor.

Some active investors, of which I am not, like ETF’s because you can carry out other transaction types like short selling, purchasing options, or using stop-losses.

But Which Should I Buy?

Back to the question of which to use. Because Mutual funds have low to zero transaction costs they are typically used with smaller investment portfolios. But because ETF’s have lower MER’s most investors want to switch to them as their portfolio grows. The transition point is when the transaction costs of the ETF’s roughly equal the additional expense of the mutual funds. Of course this is an inexact science since it depends on your investment horizon. See this post over on Milliion Dollar Journey for a partial answer.

While most advice hinges on the size of the portfolio, I’d like to suggest that almost all investors should be using both Mutual funds and ETFs. Instead of evaluating your portfolio as a whole, I look at individual transactions. For a transaction of any size with a longer time horizon an ETF probably makes more sense. On the other hand, for smaller investments including monthly contributions a Mutual fund makes more sense since their is no transaction costs.

The following graph summarizes the average annual expense ratio (after internal MER, and estimated transaction costs). I use it as follows. First I pick out an ETF and Mutual fund for which to compare. For me these are almost always two passively managed indexed based funds. I then look at the solid red trace that corresponds to the amount of money I have available and follow it down to the number of years I expect to hold the fund. The blue dotted lines indicate the maximum MER for which the Mutual fund makes better sense.

For example, say I have $200 to invest and I’m looking at the Barclays iShares Canadian Composite Index ETF (XIC). It has an MER of exactly 0.25%. Lets say its for my retirement funds with at least a 15 year time horizon. I quickly scan down the solid red trace with triangle markers to the 15 year line and see that a No Load Mutual fund would have to have an MER of less than 2.25%. This is easily possible, and demonstrates that for smaller regular contributions the Mutual fund will almost always win.

But what if I had $2000 dollars available from a tax refund or other lump sum payment? In this case the mutual fund would have to have an MER below 0.3% which would not be possible. The TD e-series funds (such as the TD Canadian Index) are close if your a DIY investor, but most other Canadian mutual funds are much higher.

The above graph was generated assuming an ETF MER of 0.25%, and a No Load mutual fund, but you can download my Mutual Fund vs ETF Comparison Spreadsheet if you’d like to compare other scenarios. In addition, the analysis does not consider the timing of payments, or any tax consequences. Although actively managed mutual funds typically have higher turnover, and index mutual fund turnover should be similar to an ETF version.

The method that I’ve come to use is make regular monthly payments into a Mutual fund and then when the fund has accumulated a significant value I may convert it to an ETF (as long as this doesn’t trigger significant capital gains). Any non-periodic payments such as a tax refund, bonus, or lump sum contribution I consult the above graph to decide between the mutual fund or ETF.

I hope this helps.

Alarm Free Update

2008-02-01T14:07:43Z

So I’ve now been getting up at 5:30 every day, weekends included, for four weeks. And I love it!

Now there have been some setbacks. I still rely on the trusty alarm clock 30-40% of the time so I cannot claim I am alarm free anymore. Hopefully this will come with time. Another problems is on days when I’ve stayed up late the night before I am, understandably, tired the next day since I won’t let myself sleep in.

The good part? Getting up is getting easier by the day, I have more energy in general throughout the day, I feel tired when I should go to bed, and the tired I feel (as I originally noted) is less in my head and more in my body. Even though I haven’t set about to reduce my sleep length (yet), I am sleeping less just because I still don’t go to bed as early as I probably should.

My wife continues to enjoy the sleeping in on weekends, but now I can’t help but wonder whether the variable sleep pattern actually helps her or just makes her feel more tired throughout the day. All I know is that getting up at a regular time has made a world of difference for me.

Either way, I’m not going back. Its 5:30am for me from now on.

International Asset Allocation

2008-01-24T14:03:25Z

One of the primary reasons for this blog is to provide a public place for me to track my financial performance. In the last couple of years I have been converted to a passively managed asset allocation strategy, for a number of reasons that I won’t get into right now. By publicly documenting my financial performance I can (hopefully) demonstrate to others the validity of this technique and it will force me to be diligent in tracking my performance. As of the end of last year (2007) , the money I manage has almost totally been moved into this new strategy.

For now I would like to present my target asset allocation. Some of this is based of the model portfolios of IFA.

Geographic Allocation

Because I am not in the US, by geographic allocation differs a little from many of the recommendations. I roughly used the guide at the Efficient Markets Canada website to determine market capitalizations and came up with the following target.

Location	Allocation
Canada	40 %
US	40 %
International	15 %
Emerging Markets	5 %

This is pretty heavily weighted in Canada (relative to our 3 % of world market capitalization), but since that is my home country it reduces some of the currency risk. Unfortunately it also reduces the benefits of diversification since my welfare is already tied pretty closely to other events in Canada. As more currency hedged funds come on to the market I may consider weighting this lower.

Valuation and Size

For this I primarily based my asset allocation on the research by Kenneth French and Eugene Fama which seems to indicate that, with little exception, in the long run value stocks and small cap stocks outperform the market as a whole. For this reason, and since I have a good 30 years investment horizon, I choose to overweight in value stocks:

Valuation	Allocation
Value	40 %
Blend	35 %
Growth	25 %

and in small and micro cap stocks:

Size	Allocation
Large	50 %
Mid	25 %
Small	15 %
Micro	10 %

Its not easy to come up with a portfolio that meets all three allocations at once, so I’ll share the tool I used for this in a future blog post as well as my actual portfolio and its performance.

The Givers Dilema Update

2008-02-26T20:21:33Z

This is just a quick update to the givers dilema post that includes a Powerpoint and PDF version for your use.

The Givers Dilema (PPT)
The Givers Dilema (PDF)

Cut the Whole Loaf

2008-01-24T12:55:38Z

Sometimes the best productivity tips come from the most unusual places…

We buy unsliced bread. And I can’t believe how many years we would go to the freezer, un-thaw the loaf in the microwave, slice off a couple pieces, and then put the rest back in the freezer for next time. In retrospect, I must have been insane! Why didn’t I just cut the whole loaf? By taking a few extra seconds to cut the entire loaf the first time saves us from unthawing the loaf, getting out a cutting board and knife, making a mess on the counter, and wasting time and energy with the microwave on every subsequent use. The small additional time is more than compensated for the next time we want a slice of bread. Is eating so urgent that the important task of managing our time wisely should be delayed?

Seems obvious, but how often do we make similar, if not more damaging, mistakes in other areas? We switch tasks at the drop of a hat. When we return we must get physically setup (desk, papers arranged) and/or electronically setup (software started, files opened) as well as mentally adjusted (recalling where we were, purpose, next steps). For example, do you stop what your doing whenever your phone rings? How about when a new email comes in? Here’s some that I’ve noticed lately:

Email - This is probably the biggest killers if you leave your email notifier on during the day since it happens so often. Every email then requires a switch in metal focus, software applications, and usually some small follow up. When finished you’ll then have to close some software, restore some others, perhaps rearrange your windows again, make another mental shift before you can get back to where you were. Why not queue it up like the loaf of bread and process it all at once, while you have the software open and your in the right frame of mind?
Drop In’s - When an urgent task is dropped on your desk, do you drop everything or do you say “I’ll get right to that as soon as I hit a milestone on my current task”? Honestly, what percentage of urgent tasks couldn’t wait at least an hour to get started? Ask yourself what would have happened if you were on lunch break or in another meeting when the item popped up.
Processing Letter Mail - When you get your mail do you set it down, perhaps open a few and then leave paper (some important, some garbage) around? Think how wasteful in time this is, not even considering the extra mess it creates. Personally, we are now getting setup in our kitchen with the necessary letter openers, files, cheques, and recycling box so that mail can be started and completed in one step. (This is simply GTD/inbox zero for you paper mail.)
Cleaning up - This is one we’ve struggled to help our kids understand; that part of playing is cleaning up. If they don’t cleanup now they will have to do it before they play next time. At that point it will require more mental effort to recall where things are and where they go. Plus, perhaps the next time they want to play they only have a few minutes which isn’t long enough to finish cleaning up from last time. Adults do this to all the time. Look at your desk.
Meals - This one could go either way, and it may be personal as to which is preferred. If you believe that a meal isn’t over until the tables cleared, food cleaned, and dishes put away then the house will be much cleaner, but it may not be the most efficient. This is the route we have chosen and recognizing the penalty we pay for switching tasks we have purchased a few scrub brushes with built in soap to save us from filling the sink if there is only a couple of dishes. The alternative point of view is to look at meals as separate tasks (prepare, eat, clean) in which case you might want to group them together (this is what most people do with dishes, no?) The second is probably most efficient because it does minimize the task switches but in this case We’ve chosen the former because the queue of dishes looks bad and causes some mental stress. For it is not the most effective.

The last point is a perfect example of the decision process that one needs to go through when dealing with task switching. We need to weigh the cost of queuing the next task against the cost of switching tasks (twice), including the cost of making the mental switch. The mental switch is perhaps the hardest to quantify but the most recent advice seems to imply it is much bigger then one would guess.

Unfortunately, in many cases, we don’t even think about this. We simply switch tasks, slowly letting the urgent eliminate the important and taking longer to get the simplest tasks complete, like getting a slice of bread.

The givers dilema

2008-02-26T20:21:44Z

If you’ve ever discussed the idea of giving to the poor with someone you will inevitably run into the excuse that you shouldn’t give because the recipient will probably just use it for drugs or cigarettes. Before I completely debunk this, lets take a look at the following simple decision matrix.

		Give Money	Don’t Give
		Your Decision
Real Desire	Food, Shelter, Clothing	Great choice. You may have saved a life.	Bad choice. You have condemned someone to another night of suffering, or worse
Real Desire	Alcohol, Drugs, or Tobacco	Oops. You may have supported someones bad habit. They’re no better or worse than before	Another good choice, or is it? You haven’t supported their bad habit, but you haven’t helped them either

So, what will it be? Assume that they don’t really need the money, don’t give, and then take a chance that they could go another night without a meal? Or, take the chance and give them the money, realizing that it may support a bad habit, but won’t make their life worse?

The thing is, the whole question (and excuse) is mute when you realize that money isn’t the only thing you can give! Why not just offer to buy the person a meal? Come on, does it really take that long at a fast food joint? I’ve tried this a number of times and 2 out of 3 people have gratefully accepted. If time is really a problem then buy a few food coupons the next time your at the grocery store, or extra transit passes, or clothing gift certificates, or pay phone cards, or even an extra pair of socks. These can’t be used for drugs, alcohol, or tobacco so you can know that they person who takes them, needs them (yes they could potentially sell them, but your really stretching now).

I would really encourage you to offer to take the person out for a meal. Be safe about it, and stay in public places with others around, but don’t just assume the worst. Take the opportunity to talk to the person, ask them a few questions and answer some of theirs. You might find they aren’t that much different than you after all! In the event that the person swears at you and walks off (it happens), just try again. You just might get the chance to save someones life.

Make lunch; eat supper

2008-01-12T04:02:26Z

I just started doing this one at the end of last year and it has quickly become one of my favorite tricks.

After supper is made and before it is served, I dish out one (or more) lunch sized servings into my lunch containers. Then we eat dinner. This way, before supper is even started my lunch is made for the next day.

I personally like this because it:

saves me a few minutes in the morning since I don’t have to prepare a lunch.
ensures there is enough food for my lunch, since I take it out first.
reduces the amount of food I eat at dinner.
gets two jobs done at once (lunch and dinner made).

The challenge is making healthy enough meals that I don’t feel bad eating the same thing for two meals in a week. I do try to have a couple days of buffer so that what I have for dinner one night doesn’t end up in my lunch for a couple of days, just for the variety.