2 in, 2 out

If this was fiction, I’d been critical of the writer for reaching too far for symmetry. But the truth is that many years ago I came to the US with two suitcases, and this week I headed back to India, also with two suitcases.

Almost two decades ago, fresh with my Bachelor’s degree I headed off to the US for grad studies. In my two suitcases were some clothes, cooking utensils, Indian music audio cassettes which I thought might be difficult to get in the US, and several textbooks and notes for my studies. In equal parts there was anticipation of what awaited and a sense of loss at all that I was leaving behind.

Fast forward two decades. This time, in my two suitcases again there are clothes. One sleek device holds more than a 100 times the music that those audio-cassettes had. And an external hard drive memory, the size of a cigarette packet (our most prized possession) all of our photos, notes and documents with room to spare.

This symmetry is somewhat disingenuous, since we have left boxes of stuff in long term storage. But those are mostly things like extra clothes, vacuum cleaner and microwave oven, things to help jump-start our stay in the US when we get back there. It has nothing that we can’t afford to lose.

Meanwhile, here I am in India (with two suitcases) eager to experience this vast country, and to reacquaint myself with its quirks and ways.

Another source of data

We went to the I-90 toll way Oasis to return our I-pass transponder. This was just one of the dozens of small things that have to be taken care of when you are moving. The guy at the booth there was processing our refund to give us our deposit back.
“Did it already deduct the tolls that we just paid?” we asked him. We had just crossed the toll point at O’Hare minutes ago.
He said yes and added, "Don’t worry, they are not going to come after you in India for 40 cents,” he said.
“How did you know that we are going back to India?” I asked him.
“Why else would you be returning the transponder?” he asked. “Just last week, I had 5 returns from Indians. Three of them are going back to New Delhi. The economy here is not so good. I think the Indian economy must be doing okay. People are going back.”

I was surprised at how, from his vantage point, he was piecing things together. Yes, it is all anecdotal and the sample size is tiny. But it was another small reminder to me that if you are willing to look, there are always unexpected sources to learn what’s going on.

A “marketplace” for Volunteers - VolunteerInfo.Net

This post is just to share information about a website that I recently found and have personally used. Extremely impressive service.

This is yet another case of me coming up with what I thought was a good idea, only to find out that it already existed. I've always felt the need for a web-based organization – an EBay- or Craigslist-like marketplace for volunteers. It would be a place where volunteers could indicate their time commitment willingness, their skills and task preferences; and where organizations looking for volunteers could list what exactly they are looking for.

In the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, VolunteerInfo does exactly that – with a neat web application that does all this and a lot more besides. It is quite likely that there are similar organizations in your area too. It is a shame that I find out about Volunteerinfo just as I am leaving the area.

Freecycle

Things had gone awry and we didn’t even know it. My wife and I, reasonably proud that we hadn’t acquired too many things were, it seemed, quite deluded. We live in a 2-bedroom apartment, and only as we get ready to move are we realizing the sheer volume of things we have squirreled away. (This is what happens when you can’t throw away things in working condition.) But we are moving countries, and so pretty much everything needs to be disposed off one way or another.

One very efficient resource, it turns out, is freecycle.org. One example: A few years back, I bought a good amount of art materials (acrylic paints, watercolors, papers, sketch pads and brushes) but I hadn’t used them in years. They were very much usable, and rather than throwing them away, my wife decided to offer it on Freecycle.

One night the posting went out past 11.30pm, and within an hour there were 2 takers. All in all, we had close to a dozen people asking for it. Many genuinely needed it, but we could only give it to one. We ended up giving it to an arts program that a local hospital ran.

Freecyle truly leverages the power of the Web in getting demand and supply met, with the variation that there is no money exchanged. If you have things you want to give away, definitely consider posting it on this site in your area and watch the demand rush. Or maybe you can pick up something that is on offer. But be careful. You don’t want to end up with stuff that you didn’t really need. Check it out, though.

Hedonic Adaptation in Retirement

“Ram, are you thinking of coming back to work?” “Are you doing the things you wanted to do?” These are the questions that I regularly get asked via email or phone calls with friends and ex-colleagues.

What they are really asking is this: So now that you left work, are you really, really happy? Since most of us dream of not having to go to work, I know that my answer could be a valuable data point for them.

I really am very happy, but the reason I can’t be gaga ecstatic in my response is because I am aware of hedonic adaptation.

At its simplest, hedonic adaptation is the theory that humans rapidly adapt to their current situation, becoming habituated to the good or the bad. As a mnemonic for this phrase I think of hedonism – the pursuit of pleasure – and then link ‘adapting to it.’

(For the sake of completeness I should also mention that there are many who make nuanced arguments and try to refute or caveat the theory of hedonic adaptation.)

I first came across this term a few years ago in Daniel Gilbert’s excellent book “Stumbling on Happiness.” (I am a happiness literature junkie.)

Lottery winners are almost always mentioned as the textbook example of hedonic adaptation. Every study of lottery winners shows that after around 18 months or so, they are no happier than they were before winning the lottery.

I have seen a variation of it in my own case. Whether I am working or not working, I seem to feel equally busy. When I was working, it was fairly common for my list of to-do’s to have 15-20 items or more. I would knock off as many as I could, and roll over the remaining tasks for the next day. These days, I have much fewer items, but it still feels like I am just as busy. (Witness hedonic adaptation.)

Hedonic adaptation can be a very good thing when things go bad for us. We learn to adapt to it, to return quickly to our ‘set point.’ The flip side is that even when very good things happen to us, we get used to them very quickly too. (Can you remember the very first search you did on Google? It seemed like a great thing had happened to us -- the Web coupled with Google seemed to open up possibilities like never before. But today, we have so thoroughly adapted to the existence of Google in our lives that we just are not as thrilled about it as we once were.)

Knowing that hedonic adaptation exists, I have to constantly remind myself of how fortunate I really am, of how much I value my free time and that I should be using that time for things I think are worth doing, for things that make me happy.

These psychologists (who seem to have a metaphor for everything) are now dubbing this as being on the hedonic treadmill – no matter what speed, you end up in the same place.

Apply before you leave your job

Rupal wanted me to pass this along to anyone considering early retirement or a hiatus from employment:
Make a list of the places where you will be applying for anything financial (Credit cards, loans, leases and the like) and apply before you leave your job.

We learned this the hard way. It didn’t occur to either of us until we had already left our jobs. Here are a couple of real examples.

After years of not having time to spend on my portfolio, I decided that I would look into selling covered calls. I own a few ETF’s (SPY, QQQQ). I understand the theory and the risks and rewards of selling covered calls well. But I found out that my brokerage account wasn’t approved for Options trading. So I logged on to my brokerage and applied for it online. But in the application, I had to state that I was unemployed and had no income to speak of. Sure enough, I got rejected. (No complaints, I would have done the same thing if I had been the one reviewing my application.)

Second example: My wife and I are now applying for a new credit card because it has no foreign fees for transactions abroad. (That would save us 2-3% on each transaction in India.) But I won’t be too surprised if we get rejected.

Maybe I should try claiming that I am self-employed. I know if I had applied when I had my corporate job, I’d have gotten the approvals fairly easily.

Lesson: Before leaving your job, take the time to think about (and make a list of) the various places that you would be applying for anything financial. If you are planning to move to a different town after quitting your job, you should seriously consider getting your leases, loans etc. done while you are still employed.

"Free" Real Estate Seminars

Call it journalism, or call it joblessness or just plain curiosity, but in the past two weeks, I went to two free "workshops" on Real Estate investing – one by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki’s team, and one by Donald Trump’s team. Having time in the middle of the day means that I can attend programs that I wouldn’t be able to, if I was busy at work.

I claim it was journalistic purposes because I have no interest in being a real estate investor whatsoever. I don’t even own a primary residence. But I went because I was very curious about the people who attend these seminars (in the middle of weekdays) and I wanted to study the presenters and hey, it was free.

These were both 90 minute sessions, and as I learned the main intent of these workshops was to get people to sign up for 2 and 3 day advanced seminars, where they teach you lots of Real Estate techniques in great detail.

Here are some of my impressions and notes from the free pre-class:

• Behold the power of Branding. Thanks to the popularity of TV shows (The Apprentice) and books, people like Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki have become household names. They are able to capitalize on that by essentially franchising themselves. Trump’s is called Trump U., and Kiyosaki markets it as “Rich Dad Education."

• Though it is not the intent, you can learn a lot about good presentation techniques by studying these presenters. Their task is to take disbelievers (who are most likely not economically well off and quite possibly unemployed) and try to sell them expensive course packages. The presenters were without exception great sales people.

• One clever technique I saw was to ask everyone to hold all the questions till the end. This is because they don’t want disbelievers disrupting the sales pitch, casting doubts.

• They will repeatedly make fun of anyone who has any doubts whatsoever.

• These folks must have all gone to the same NLP techniques class, because they all use it. Programming the audience first and then repeatedly making them shout out the same words and phrases over and over again. “Because I am going to help you make what?” and the real estate market has been really going where? and so on. (Correct responses: “Lots of money” and “Down”)

• They will pretend to get very angry when the audience doesn’t respond to moronic questions. “So does working for only 4 hours a week sound good to you?” “Would you like to make $20,000 on your very first deal?” (Hint: You are supposed to scream your Yes very loudly.)

• They make fun of books and CD’s that you see on late-night TV infomericals, and yet they try to tempt you with books that you absolutely must own and will get only if you attend the 3 day seminar.

I am really not knocking these multi-day seminars. They might be just the thing for people who have the willingness, but not the know-how. I approve of a lot of what they say – yes Knowledge is very important, and yes everyone has to take action if they are serious about improving their lot in life. I know that these Real Estate techniques (pre-foreclosure, short sales etc.) do work for some, and that the fees for these 2 and 3 day classes will pay for themselves for some people.

I just don’t approve of how easy they make it sound.