Tag Archives: apple

Posted on

Don’t Forget To Update Your Financial Operating System (OS)

ios-7

Android die-hards can tell you everything that is wrong with iOS7, Apple’s recently released operating system for iPhones, iPads and iPods.  Those who gripe every time something changes are also among the early detractors.  Everyone else—that is, those of us who’ve gone back for a second or third helping of tasty iKool-Aid—loves it.  The exclamation that I hear most often regarding the new iOS is, “It’s the same phone, but it seems like it’s brand new!”  What struck me even harder than iWorship last week, however, was recounting the number of individuals who, with unchanged exteriors, have undergone noticeable overhauls in their Personal Operating System (POS)—for the better.

“I’m bad with money.”

Don’t you love the way we label ourselves as predestined for failure?  “I have a bad temper.”  “I have no willpower.”  “Exercise and I don’t mix.”  “Oh, I have ADD.”  “I’m not a good listener.”  “I have a sweet tooth.”  Or the one I hear often as a financial planner and educator, “I’m just bad with money.”

It sounds like self-deprecation—even humility—but it’s actually self-justification.  We’re giving ourselves permission to behave badly in the future.  Before you get angry with me for hurling accusations, let me confess that I am one of those people who have used this tactic, unknowingly and sadly, knowingly, at times.

What all of these expressions of inability or ignorance have in common is that they’re simply inexcusable.  Not only are they not rocket science, they are not even changing the oil in your car.  They are more like brushing your teeth or putting gas in the tank.  Even if you’re predisposed to flying off the handle, it’s no excuse for being mean.  Even if you’re prone to indulgent spontaneity, you must own your decisions.  Even if you’re not a gym rat or naturally fit, as a human you weren’t designed to be sedentary.  Even if your attention migrates easily, you can’t use it as an excuse for intellectual laziness.  Just because you like chocolate, it doesn’t excuse gluttony.  Lastly, you don’t have to understand the Alternative Minimum Tax or be able to articulate Modern Portfolio Theory to spend less than you earn and plan for the unknown, the two categories into which the vast majority of financial planning recommendations fall.

“Completely new and instantly familiar”

The great news about overcoming self-deception is that we can turn on a dime once we recognize it.  While some of us may need to do a deep dive with a counselor to target more systemic self-denial, many are free to simply choose the alternative path of wisdom and act accordingly, almost immediately.  Especially regarding our dealings with money, we can upgrade our financial operating systems right now.  Like our phone updates, it may take a little time to install the new mindset, but in dealing with behavior that is not tied to a compulsive diagnosis, we can look the same on the outside with a completely new perspective internally in a very short period of time.  Two of the life-changing tools that I’ve seen dramatically reboot people’s financial programming are Dave Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover, and You Need A Budget, cash flow software created by former accountant, Jesse Mecham.

Jony Ive, Apple’s SVP of Design describes the new iOS as “completely new and instantly familiar.”  The best part about acquiescing to our own personal evolution is that it too will feel oddly familiar, because it’s how it ought to be.  Adults aren’t supposed to throw temper tantrums.  We’re designed to overrule our basest instincts with self-control.  It feels great when we expend the calories we take in through physical activity.  We’re capable of being present in a world full of distractions and applying our attention to those who most deserve and need it.  Sweets taste better as treats than as main courses.  And with a little guidance—but primarily common sense and intellectual honesty—we can choose to be good managers of money, and then do so.

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know on Twitter at @TimMaurer, and if you’d like to receive my weekly post via email, click HERE.

Posted on

Steve Job’s Financial Planning Advice: You Are Already Naked

01_Steve-Jobs_full“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” Steve Jobs was not the first to say this, but apparently the most famous.  He mentioned it at the Stanford commencement ceremony of 2005, and he didn’t leave the quote merely hanging in the philosophical ether.  He personalized it further:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Jobs was initially diagnosed with cancer in October 2003, told first (mistakenly) he had less than six months to live, so he did have a chance to contemplate his thoughts on death prior to these eloquent words spoken at Stanford.  But according to his life prior to cancer, he seemed to live with this same blend of urgency and peace with prospective failure.

What keeps you from living life with a sense of urgency?  What keeps you from an impassioned pursuit of whatever it is that you feel created to do?

In entirely too many cases, the answer is fear not of physical death, but instead fear of our financial demise, which is often rooted in a fear of lifestyle reduction, which is often rooted in a fear of relative lifestyle comparison with our peers, which is especially ironic when you consider the millions of unemployed workers, bankrupt households, foreclosed homes and underwater homeowners.  Most stricken with these seemingly terminal financial illnesses actually “followed the rules.”  They didn’t take big chances, but instead followed the crowd.

What would it look like in your life, work and finances if “all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure” were cast aside, as Jobs suggests?  And is it possible to do this responsibly within the confines of a financial plan that supports “what is truly important” to you?

Your answer to those questions is bound to benefit you in money and life.

Posted on

How A Dorky Holster Saved My iPhone In A 60 MPH Accident

So I’m headed out the door for the REALLY early hot vinyasa yoga class in an attempt to start a long day off with an extra dose of peace, but I’m really not a morning person and shouldn’t be allowed to wake—much less drive a vehicle—at 5:30am.  Nonetheless, I make it to yoga and experience my desired helping of Zen, only to return home and find my 64-gig-4S-runs-my-life-and-makes-it-complete-iPhone—missing.

It’s difficult retracing my steps through the drowsy cloud that was my first 30 minutes of the day, stumbling into the garage, trying to remember the activity’s necessities: yoga mat, 32 ounces of water to replace those I’m about to lose, yogi towel, face towel, shower towel, toiletries—WAIT—is it possible that I put my iPhone on top of the car when I was shoveling all that stuff in the back seat?  Oh [word that I’m attempting to remove from my vernacular]!

But I’m not too awfully worried yet; there were several very slow turns within my community that would likely have sent the phone off the roof gently, maybe even landing in a soft pile of leaves (that haven’t yet fallen from the trees?).  Nope, nothing there.

A-hah!  I remember flipping a toggle switch when I set up my new device that would enable me to “Find My iPhone,” and thankfully found an app on my new iPad bearing the same name.  Hallelujah—the phone appears to be alive, still able to gasp out a GPS signal, and only 1.3 miles from home!  I spread my fingers on the high-retina display to zoom in vivid high definition to see the phone is indeed ON the Jones Falls Expressway—Interstate 83—one of the busiest thoroughfares in the Baltimore metro.  And it’s 8:00am.  On a Tuesday.

As I’m now driving in my car, I’m picturing Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans yelling, “No matter what occurs, stay alive.  I will find you!”  But even if I could find it, I can’t imagine justifying a game of human Frogger to retrieve even my favorite genderless e-companion, Siri.  Then, as I approach the location, internally debating whether I should bother the Lord with requests for the safe return of this gadget on steroids, I see her (Siri definitely sounds like a girl to me)—sitting three inches from the white line, resting partially upright in the rumble strips, snug in the dorky holster I bought on Amazon for under $5 (shipping included—from Hong Kong).  I cradle her like a wounded bird into the passenger seat, afraid to remove her from the holster now obscuring what surely must be a fractured face.  I can’t look.  And then I do.  Somehow, amazingly, she survived—unscathed!  My only conclusion is that she landed on the dorkiest part of the dorky holster—the clip—and bounced into the rumble strips to await my brave retrieval.

The moral of this story?  I’m too attached to my iPhone.  Or, maybe I’m too attached to the $849.99 (per Verizon) it would cost to replace her—I mean, it.  I guess I could craft a moral that directs you to phone insurance—in which case, I’d probably tell you it’s a complete rip-off to buy it from Verizon or AT&T for $10 per month with a $169 deductible, and still a pretty penny to pay $99 plus a $50 deductible for Apple Care + or SquareTrade—but I think there’s something a bit more nuanced and meaningful here.

As one entirely capable of unworthily worshipping stuff and occasionally money, I believe we can justify attachments to iPhones and cash only to the point that they enhance our personal relationships (the ones with actual people we know and love).  They are, indeed, incredibly valuable tools in the pursuit of relationships, but it’s vital we don’t allow [insert material object here] to replace them.