Que pasa con Felipe?

Now by no means is this a plug for getting coffee at Starbucks, but it actually is! For you folks who know the wonders of using coffee grounds for your worm bin, compost bin and for gardening Starbucks offers their used coffee grounds FREE at the asking. You might have to coordinate with them, but all in all I've been pretty successful getting it for my worm bins and beefing up green material for our compost bin. Over the weekend I asked my wife to visit a Starbucks shop to ask for coffee grounds and the one she visited had so much that it would take two people to help her with the bag of used coffee grounds. She opted not to get the bag this time, but the story suggests they have literally tons to give away! Check it out.

After our son was born, and being somewhat of a planner, I began to think of ways to help him financially. If you haven't already, visit this blog entry (http://my.opera.com/pgmon30000/blog/2007/03/04/equations-to-think-about-for-calculating-3) and also this simple financial calculator (http://my.opera.com/pgmon30000/blog/simple-financial-calculator-3) which may help to get the wheels turning and also do a little planning.

The first idea I had was to open a Roth IRA for him. Huh? He's not even walking and I want to start a Roth Individual Retirement Account? And I say, heck yah, why not? Remember that the earlier you start saving, the more powerful compound interest becomes. And since one cannot withdraw from a Roth IRA, in order to not get penalized, until the ripe age of at least 59 1/2 years old, that's 59 1/2 years for a lump sum investment to grow if you start it as soon as your baby is born! Assuming a 7% average rate of return and you open an account with $1000, in 59 1/2 years that will turn into $63,619. Of course with inflation, the buying power of that $63,619 will be less. But get this, wouldn't this be a great way to have some inheritance money for your child? And at only $1,000 today (or whatever you decide) it's kinda cheap! If you use a mutual fund or ETF as the investment tool for the Roth IRA, be sure that the expense ratio is pretty dang low in order to cut down on management costs. I recommend looking into index funds, which mimic any number of indices like the S & P 500. If you shop there are many mutual funds and ETFs with expense ratios around .10 which is extremely low!

The second idea I had was to take advantage of opening a Coverdell Education Savings Account. One can invest up to $2,000 a year into one of these. Unfortunately the $2,000 can't be used as a deduction on your 1040 (here in the US), but the earnings, dividends, capital gains, etc. will not be taxed so long as your son or daughter uses the account to pay for qualified education expenses before the age of 30. That could be tuition, books, or lab fees for example. Unfortunately all contributions to the account must be made before your son or daughter turns 18. But assuming you contribute whatever you could as soon as he or she is born that's still a great way to save. Of course this assumes your son or daughter actually does go to college, which I hope any parent would want to encourage.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on the matter. Again, think about giving your child a little advantage. If you can afford to, why not?

A few weeks ago I decided to clean out my worm bin and remove old castings. My other intention was to see how many worms I could afford to give up. I figured about a pint, and placed an ad on Craigslist to sell a pint of my worms for $15.00. In less than a day I got an interested client, and I took the pint to downtown Seattle, found the guy, and sold it to him. Turns out he is starting his own worm bin to compost his food waste. Pretty cool! I'm sloowllly recouping the costs I made for starting the bin. Anyway I'll probably check again in September or October and see if I can sell more worms then.

This morning I got up at 9 a.m. and turned the TV on to one of our local public broadcast television stations. On was Motorweek, a weekly show that talks about trends, tips, reviews, of vehicles. In this episode they discussed a nifty website where one can estimate the fuel economy of their vehicle. The government uses new standards for estimating fuel economy, and can show the results of the new ratings versus old. Here I decided to check on my 1986 Toyota Pickup, 2WD, 2.4L 4-speed manual. Occasionally on the highways, especially on long drives, I check the miles per gallon and I seemed to have consistently received around 28 to 30 miles to the gallon (or 12 to 13 kilometers per liter). As you can see, using its assumptions (15000 miles per year, 55% city, 45% highway) the fuel economy on my vehicle is actually not bad (again, based on the assumptions it produces about 7.1 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions).

What's even niftier about the website is you can plug in your assumptions. Well, I ended using my present assumptions of 7500 miles (12000 km) driven per year, 65% city, 35% highway, and it calculated my overall average mileage per gallon to be about 25, with 3.4 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions. Pretty cool, considering where I live is conveniently located by numerous bus stops (which I use as I'm still a student obtaining yet another master degree and my bus pass subsidizes costs) and many shopping opportunities within a one-mile radius (1.6 km). This will all probably change as soon as I actually get back into the real world, but I'll still try to continue using present habits, such as using public transportation, walking, and even biking, where I can. Check the website out! It also discusses alternative fuel vehicles