DIY Repair Rework - Silicone Caulk may not Harden

Recently, I had a had a major do-over of a repair job I did. The caulk on our shower was becoming moldy, so I removed the old silicone caulk and applied new silicone caulk. The tube was one I had left over from a previous job, where I caulked around our bathtub. The silicone caulk worked fine the last time. However, this time it did not harden after 12 hours, remaining soft and tacky. While 24 hours is required for complete cure, I knew something was wrong.

To find out, I checked the Internet for similar issues and found several discussion threads describing the issue. I also went to manufacturer's website and learned the new silicone caulks sometimes would not harden, especially after the expiration date. In the past, silicone caulks went bad by hardening. I had never experienced the issue of a caulk not curing.

According to the expiration date, my tube was supposed to be good for another six months. I called the customer service number, but only got a busy signal, apparently because it was before the opening time of 8AM. So I sent an e-mail and continued to call the customer service number, which was answered at 8AM.

According to the customer service representative (CSR), the new silicone caulks use a curing agent different than acetic acid. The new curing agent can sometimes dissipate or go bad, particularly after the expiration date. Apparently, this is a known issue and does occur occasionally before the expiration date. My comment was that they need to explicitly let users know, since most people don't know about a caulk failing by not hardening.

The CSR did provide excellent help for cleaning up the uncured caulk. The solution was to use iso-propyl alcohol, which works as a solvent. They also did reimburse the cost of the tube that went bad, and the cost of a new tube. However, I still had to spend about an hour cleaning out the uncured caulk, for which I knew there would be no reimbursement :-(

From now on, I will always do a test of silicone caulk to make sure it cures before starting a new job. This can be done in 15 minutes, but putting a short bead on a piece of paper and checking if the material develops a skin in that time. I just wish the manufacturer had put the quality check test on the instructions for the caulk. It may have saved me an hour of extra work that was needed to clean out the uncured caulk.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or repair advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links To Carnivals From June 23 to 29, 2009

Here are the links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from June 23 to 29, 2009:

Carnival of Financial Planning #95

Boomers & Seniors Blog Carnival

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, investment, or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Early Retirement Strategy - Save, Invest and Repeat Often

In October, 2007, I took early retirement to join my wife who had stopped working eight years earlier. The strategy that helped us achieve early retirement was basically three parts:

1. Save 10 to 20% of our income. This created a sustainable mentality and habit of saving. In addition, it helped us to consistently live below our means since we only used 80 to 90% of our take home pay. Finally, saving kept us from going into debt, other than a home mortgage, which we paid off recently.



2. Invest. Since my company retirement savings was aggressively invested, i.e. only in our company stock, we invested our own funds very conservatively. In our own accounts, we put about 70 to 80% in CDs, bonds, and other fixed income and the rest in individual stocks and ETFs.



3. Repeat often. We would save and invest consistently with every paycheck. In addition, we tried to put most, if not all, of raises, bonuses and other adjustments into savings if possible. This helped us avoid lifestyle creep, which could happen easily in the former times of larger raises and bonuses.

For us, each element of the strategy was like the leg of a stool, without one the overall goal for early retirement might not have been achieved. Some may question the investing element, especially with the significant declines in the stock market and real estate. However, in spite of the poor returns in the past 18 months, I still believe that a good investment strategy is still relevant for the future.

For more on Strategies and Plans Ideas, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial, saving or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Why Chrysler and GM are Doomed to Fail

Why Government Can't Run a Business by John Steele Gordon in The Wall Street Journal offers a great op-ed on why a government owned business is doomed to fail. History has shown that governments are ineffective at running a business. The reason for failure? Simply, government is run by politicians and politicians make political decisions, not economic ones, which are required to be successful in a business.

The Chrysler and GM bankruptcies and reorganizations already demonstrated that political reasons, instead of economic (and perhaps rule of law) reasons were the basis for many of the decisions. I can't see any other reason for the government giving so much to the labor unions and so little the debt holders, who have priority in a typical bankruptcy proceeding.

Previously, I didn't have much hope for Chrysler and GM surviving, given that the companies were failing during relatively good economic times. Now that the government has significant ownership in both companies, I expect Chrysler and GM will become zombie companies, run by political priorities, e.g. producing green cars no one wants to buy, and a drain on the taxpayer's money.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Good Intention - Unintended Consequence

It's been reported that the low interest rates earlier in this decade unintentionally created the housing bubble that was the precursor of the current financial crisis. Similarly, I expect the current stimulus package, health care reform, and deficit spending will lead to subsequent unintended consequences. Unfortunately, it's difficult to foresee unintended consequences, since most are usually unexpected.

To make concepts more relevant to me, I like to think about examples from my own personal situations. Here's a non-financial example of an unintended consequence we experienced.

Since we live near a wooded area, we used to put up feeders for the birds in the winter. For a while, we had a number of cardinals, finches and chickadees come to the feeder. One day, as we were watching the birds feed, a hawk swooped from above and snatched a bird flying above the feeder. As one might expect, the hawk was simply hunting where there was a high density of targets. Much to our shock, we had inadvertently created a hawk feeder.

There was yet a second unintended consequence from our bird feeder. It also attracted raccoons, since food was scarce during that year. Eventually, one of the raccoons wandered closer to the house, managed to break into our attic and gave us an unwanted inhabitant. Eventually, a pest control company trapped the raccoon and we put metal vent plates over the eave openings.

Soon after these incidents, we removed the bird feeder, which we installed because of good intentions. Yes, the birds now get fewer handouts, but we still see birds and they are doing quite fine. However, we no longer have unintended consequences of hawks feeding on birds in our yard, nor have raccoons broken into our house.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or nature advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Rethinking Retirement

Next, the Retirement Bubble by Bob Adams published on Barron's offer an interesting introduction, "If you think you deserve a long, comfortable and leisurely retirement, think again. At best, you've earned a sabbatical."

The main point of his article is that many current retirees don't have sufficient funds to cover their lifespan. He says,"If you think you can retire and live for 30 or more years off the productivity of others, you are in for a terrible surprise and a great deal of pain. You haven't earned a nonproductive retirement, nor have you 'paid your dues.' When you wake up to this in two, five or 10 years and realize that you are in big trouble, you will not only be in pain, you will dump that pain on all the rest of us who aren't retired. Don't expect us to be sympathetic for long. There are simply too many of you, and your demands will far exceed our willingness to sacrifice. And, no, we won't want to hire you. You will have been out of touch for too long. The world moves on. Sorry. Lots of luck."

His point is probably relevant to a lot more people after the bear market of 2008, which reduced many stocks savings accounts by 35% or more. In addition, average annual stock market returns of 7-8% are looking unlikely for the next few years.

Instead of retirement, Mr. Adams proposes taking a sabbatical, where one becomes refreshed and prepared to return to a new line of productive work. He writes, "When you retire, consider it a three-year sabbatical. Do what you want to do, when you want to do it. But keep your eyes open for something that interests you, where you can earn some income. Look for something you enjoy, something that really pleases you. When your sabbatical is over, you should have found a new line of work that will help you enjoy the rest of your life and pay for whatever makes it comfortable. You may earn less income than before, but the purpose is to supplement your retirement funds, prevent total dependency on others for your income, and keep you growing. Then you can share your happiness with the rest of us, not your pain. Take full retirement only when you must, when you can no longer be productive."

Having taken early retirement in October, 2007, his comment resonates with me. After 21 months of retirement, I realize that I am happy and satisfied doing short term lower paying jobs that are of interest to me, to reduce the withdrawal rate from our savings. I am still testing options for a longer term dream job, but haven't identified the right one yet. Hopefully, I will find it before the end of my three year sabbatical :-)

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial or retirement advice advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

An Unscientific Poll on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter

Recently, I showed up ahead of schedule for an appointment. Since most of the staff were in their late teens to early twenties, I decided to make use of my extra time and interview them about social networking sites. Specifically, I asked them whether they preferred Facebook or MySpace. Their answer was Facebook, because MySpace was better for younger (i.e. high school) kids. None of them used Twitter. They didn't understand the appeal of Twitter and didn't plan to use it.

Based on this unscientific poll of five people in their late teens and early twenties, I'm betting Facebook will be the winner. Being a social networking laggard, I haven't yet signed up for any social networking services other than blogging. However, based on this non-representative poll that I did, I will consider opening a Facebook account.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial or social networking advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Preparing to Eliminate our Credit Cards

With the new credit card protection legislation due to take effect in 2010, I expect that some of our credit card providers will try to charge us an annual fee to offset loss revenue. As far as we're concerned, any fee charging credit will not get any of our business. Why, because I only use a credit card for convenience and the credit card company already makes about 2% on all my purchases. We're not paying an annual fee to a credit card company that give them the privilege of making money on our purchases.

Currently, we have three credit cards, Costco American Express, Discover, and Visa. The American Express and Discover are cash back cards, while the Visa earns Holiday Inn Priority points.

For now, I don't expect the American Express to charge an annual fee, since Costco offers the credit card to members on a no-fee basis. In addition, American Express is the only credit card accepted at Costco. I suspect Costco has negotiated special terms with American Express and can keep the no-fee benefit. If American Express decides to charge us a fee, I will cancel the card and lose a small amount due in the annual cash back payment.

Historically, Discover has always been a no-fee card. It was the main reason I applied for the card many years ago. However, if they decide to charge a fee, I will also cancel this card. Of course, we will take any cashback award available, before cancelling.

The card that I expect will charge a fee is our Visa, issued by Chase Bank. Currently, we earn Holiday Inn Priority points, which can be exchanged for free hotel stays. Fortunately, the points are associated with our Holiday Inn account and are not tied to the credit card. Thus, if a annual fee is charged, we'll cancel the card.

In the unforeseen situation where all three credit cards levy an annual fee, we go back to paying with either checks or cash, since neither of these methods of payment carry a fee.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links to Carnivals from June 16 to 22, 2009

Here are the links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from June 16 to 22, 2009:

Money Hacks Carnival #69

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Road to Financial Independence #8

Carnival of Financial Planning #94

Carnival of Economy and your Finances

Carnival of Twenty-Something Finances

Carnival of Family Life

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, investment, or family advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Easy DIY Car Repair - $250 Savings

Recently, the small pullout compartment on the center console in my spouse's 2004 car stopped staying closed, for no apparent reason. Since it wasn't a major issue, she didn't take it in for repair immediately, waiting for the next scheduled oil change.

To her surprise, the service tech gave a quick estimate of $250 or more. Pretty pricey for the replacement of a pullout compartment similar to an ashtray. Unfortunately, it involved the removal of a console panel to remove the compartment. At this price, my spouse decided to live with the problem or design our own alternative solution to keep it closed.

After coming up with a velcro patch idea, I decided to Google the issue. I found a site that described how to disassemble the console and then found a another site with a downloadable manual. In about 30 minutes, I was able take apart the console and discovered problem with the compartment. Apparently, the piece that held the spring closure had broken. Fortunately, the I was able to find the spring within the automatic gear shift section. I also found the piece that had broken off.

Although the attachment piece had broken, I was able to re-engage the spring with the compartment and get back 90% of the function. Specifically, the compartment now closes, but when opened, it doesn't consistently lock in the open position. My spouse found the solution to be acceptable, since the compartment is closed 99.99% of the time.

Overall, I thought is was a simple repair, and one that shouldn't have cost $250. While the dealer charges a reasonable price for routine maintenance, it seemed this estimate was very high. Now that I know what is needed, I'll go back to the dealer and ask for the specific part. If it still very high, I'll go the local junkyard and get the piece for a reasonable price.

Disclosure: In my youth, I used to do my own oil changes and minor repairs when cars were much simpler.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or repair advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2009 Achievement Catalyst, LLC