What is the single most important initiative that the next administration should undertake to improve the economic health of the U.S. middle class?

Wow, that’s a tough question! First, I have to look at all the various needs of our American middle class, and recognize that the “middle class” spans a wide range of personalities, experiences, and traditions. If there was one thing that could help an entire population of people, I think it would have been implemented, but you’ll never make everyone happy.

But I won’t use all that as an excuse to back out of this challenge.

One Way to Fix the Middle Class’ Finances

My answer: Accountability.

The concept of accountability isn’t new here at Clever Dude. I identified who is responsible and accountable for your finances earlier this year, and I’m standing by it, especially in these turbulent economic times. With the bailout plan signed into effect (much to my dismay), it reinforces America’s reliance on others to make their decisions for them.

While we sit here complaining about why the government isn’t putting more money into our pockets, we could be starting our own business or blog, getting a job or second job, obtaining a college degree or just about anything else other than sitting in front of the TV or buying scratchoff lottery tickets. Instead of doing proper research into our real estate or investment purchases, we figure that someone else will cover up our mistakes.

But at this point, reversing the bailout plan is a slim probability, so I can’t use that option as a way to teach our American middle class the concept of accountability. Therefore I propose the following methods to teach responsibility and accountability for your own finances:

• Education: Financial lessons should start at an early age. Therefore, the feds should create an education program to teach financial responsibility in schools. And I don’t mean just one class in 12 years; I mean every year! Even through college (at least in public schools). And I don’t want just “how to balance your checkbook” stuff. I want real lessons like frugality (not wasting), investing, credit/debt, loans and mortgages, taxes, insurance and all that other stuff that hundreds of personal finance blogs just like mine publish on each day.
• Financial planning tax deduction: Make it cheaper and easier for people to hire a certified financial planner. You can’t force people to get educated once they graduate, but you can make it easier for them to find the resources that can advise them on a personal level about their own financial situation.
• Reward those who save: I know our economy is strong because we spend money, but when we currently have a negative savings rate, that’s just bad. Somehow reward those who save, perhaps through higher interest rates on savings accounts, pretax savings accounts (basically a pretax CD option), and maybe even tax deductions based on savings contributions each year (less withdrawals). I don’t know, I’m just throwing out some options here.
• More real regulation over financial institutions: Providing more real oversight (not just paperwork) over financial institutions like banks and stock markets can help keep our investments and savings more secure. Also, I expect this regulation to require more documentation and educational materials in layman’s terms on the wild investment options that are out there.
• Cut social programs or modify them: For example, make it less attractive for people to just pop out babies because they know they’ll get more money and not have to work longer. Make people earn what’s given to them, unless they’re truly incapacitated and cannot give back to society. Having worked since age 15, and wanting to have a job before that, I can’t imagine just sitting around, waiting for that government check. I would at least go volunteer in my community if I couldn’t get a job. It’s just not my nature to be idle and not help my fellow citizen. Even if you’re in a wheelchair, you can always help somewhere.

In the end, you can’t expect everyone to really get the hint and take responsibility over their finances, but then again, it’s only the government’s responsibility to protect us. It’s not the feds’ duty to make us a profit, or make our bellies fat and full. We shouldn’t have government run institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s not the government’s duty to buy all our crappy investments to “kickstart the economy”. At best, the government should protect us from our own stupidity, but only to the point that we’re threatening ourselves or each other.

By providing more educational opportunities, planning, rewards (conservatively), regulation and oversight and reduction in social welfare systems, the government can allow more personal growth, responsibility and accountability. Like I said, you won’t cover everyone, but that’s not the government’s responsibility. We’re grown men and women and should act that way, including being proactive about our financial health.

Check out the other Syncro-blogs!

First, though, I’ll warn you that you need to be using Wordpress as your blog platform, at least with my instructions. Also, you need to be familiar with editing your site’s template. You’ll be touching your style.css and sidebar.php files (or adding a widget if you use those). I’ll give you the starter code and tell you where to place it, but you’ll need to do the final formatting yourself.

Step 1: Inserting the Stylesheet Code (Style.css)

In Wordpress, the stylesheet tells the web pages how to display the html tags, including colors, font sizes and even images. Thus, it’s where you need to insert the code that tells your scale how it will look.

Assuming you know how to edit your template (e.g. via your Wordpress admin panel, click Design, then Theme Editor), edit the style.css file. At the end of the file, paste the following code (the stuff in bold) and then save the file:

/* Debt Meter Start
———————————————– */
.goals {
padding: 10px;
background: #363636;
border: 1px solid #616161;
margin-bottom: 15px;
}

.goals li {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
font-size: .9em;
list-style: none;
color: #999999;
border-bottom: 1px solid #616161;
padding: 3px 0;
}

.goals li.first, .goals li.last {
border: none;
}

.goals li strong {
color: #ffffff;
}

.graph {
position: relative; /* IE is dumb */
background: #000000;
border: 1px solid #616161;
color: #ffffff;
}

.graph .bar {
display: block;
position: relative;
background: #D94616;
text-align: left;
height: 1.5em;
line-height: 1.5em;
font-size: 1em;
border-right: 1px solid #f5f5f5;
}

.graph .bar span {
padding: 0 .5em;
color: #ffffff;
}

/* Debt Meter End
———————————————– */

Step 2: Inserting the Sidebar Code

Assuming you want this file to appear in your sidebar, you’ll then edit your sidebar file (usually sidebar.php, right-sidebar.php or something similar). If you use widgets, you’ll just create a new widget that can just present HTML code and insert the following (the stuff in bold). Note that this code does not have a header, so you’ll want to create one for yourself:

Second Mortgage Start: $77,980
<div class=”graph”><strong class=”bar” style=”width: 89.91%;”>$70,033</strong></div>
<br/>——————–<br/>
<strong>Total Non-Home Debt Start: $112,890</strong>
<div class=”graph”><strong class=”bar” style=”width: 27.22%;”>$30,727</strong></div>
<br/>
<strong>Masters Degree Tuition: $5,000</strong><br/>
<div class=”graph”><strong class=”bar” style=”width: 50.26%;”>$2,513</strong></div>
<br/>
Student Loan (Mike) Debt Start: $19,733
<div class=”graph”><strong class=”bar” style=”width: 52.68%;”>$10,396</strong></div>
<br/>
Auto Loans Debt Start: $53,032
<div class=”graph”><strong class=”bar” style=”width: 63.67%;”>$17,818</strong></div>
<br/>
Original Credit Card Debt Start: $20,000
<div class=”graph”><strong>IT’S ALL GONE!</strong>
</div>

Step 3: Modify the Sidebar Code

I’ll assume that both your name isn’t Mike, nor do you have the exact same debt amounts and types that we do, so here are some tips for editing the sidebar code:

• Compare my code with my sidebar to see where to edit the text. For example, the text”Second Mortgage Start: $77,980” appears above the first bar graph.
• Copy everything from <div> to </div> and paste if you want more bar graphs.
• To edit the length of the line, change the width percentage. 100% means the bar will be completely colored.
• The last bar graph is different because I didn’t need to display any color. You can easily just leave the width at 0% if you want.

Step 4: Modify the Stylesheet Code (Optional)

I left this step for last because I wanted you to make sure your debt scales at least displayed properly first before you try to change up the colors. Now that it does show up properly, feel free to change how it looks, but I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which code will change what. That’s the fun of HTML programming…learning some stuff for yourself

Wow, heavy-duty question, isn’t it? You would think with all the debates and campaign ads that the current candidates would have some kind of answer for this too.  Sadly, I don’t have much confidence that the federal government will be able to implement my answer, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out what it is!

And now for my favorite articles from this past week:

From the Personal Finance Network

- Blunt Money helps us prepare for a layoff.

- Canadian Capitalist gives his opinion of the bailout.

- MoneyNing gives us 10 activities for the bear market.

- Quest for Four Pillars tells us don’t worry about the falling markets.

- Squawkfox teaches us how to make a homemade fruit fly trap.

From my Personal Finance Reader List

- JD at Get Rich Slowly is such a nerd. He analyzed his credit card agreement and found, well, click through to see what he found out.

- The Dough Roller tells us to learn from our financial mistakes.

- Chief Family Officer is giving away Weight Watchers coupons. Enter by Wednesday.

- Although not a PF blog, I couldn’t resist posting this link to Autoblog’s article about PigTones. You can get Yoda, Ahnold Schwarzehflhlkhkjhf and numerous other celebs giving you directions through your navigation unit. I’m really tempted.

- Wisebread answers why it’s a bad thing that banks can’t lend money now.

- Queercents teaches us a few ways to turn spenders into savers.

- And finally, Trent at The Simple Dollar gives us an inside peek at how he saves money on his baby. Hint: Cloth diapers. Actually, I didn’t know cloth diapers looked like that. I was always picturing a rag.

But what really got me, and I haven’t looked this up to find out the details of the plan, is that Biden also said he wants the bankruptcy courts to be able to lower your mortgage principle. Maybe I misunderstood the statement, but based on his words tonight, I take it that he wants the courts to be able to cut off chunks of principal off your mortgage.

Where would it go? How is this different than me, as a store owner, selling you a shirt on credit and you calling in a partial chargeback because you have other financial obligations. As a merchant, bank or any other business entity, why would I want to do business with you if I can lose money on my sale at any time, seemingly on a whim?

Maybe I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant that the court should be able to renegotiate your loan terms, not actually “forgive debt”. I can’t imagine any bill would go through that would allow the government to decide how much you owe on a mortgage, unless the sale price was inflated through fraud.

Can any of you clarify his statement with a link to their platform where it’s clarified? Your thoughts otherwise?

And if you’re going to open an account, I (and many financial specialists, of which I am not) recommend opening an account with TradeKing because when you open a TradeKing account with $2500, you get $50. Why go with TradeKing? Well, other than their great user interface, you get trades for just $4.95 each. I can tell you that’s a LOT better than the $12.99 I pay through eTrade!

Here are the rules for this promotion:

• Has to be a new non-retirement account
• Funded with $2,500
• $50 credit applied when first trade is made
• Maintain a $2,500 balance for six months (minus any investment losses)
• Only one promotion per household
• Account must be opened after following a promotional link - not available by visiting the site directly

Hurry because the offer is only open until the end of October!

Many of you know those “pay-per-pound” buffets where you, well, pay for food by the pound. You find them at the local deli or supermarket, and they’re always flush with foods like fruit, chinese food, prepared pasta salads and other pretty or tasty foods. You get to choose from any of the foods, and any amount, and just pay for what you picked. But they have one major downfall:

Pay-per-pound buffet foods are made to be heavy!

The first few times I purchased food from these bars, I didn’t know any better. I loaded up their styrofoam container (the 3-partition one like in the picture above) with General Tso’s chicken, “sushi”, noodles and pineapple. I mistook this buffet for an all-you-can-eat buffet. But the strategies used to get your money’s worth at all-you-can-eat buffets aren’t the same as with pay-per-pound ones. Instead, you should use some different strategies, much like those to satisfy your tastebuds without expanding your waistline. When you’re paying $5-7 per pound, you want to get your money’s worth!

Tips for Saving Money at Pay-per-pound Buffets

First, while some of you will think all of the thought I’ve gone through here just shows how cheap I am, then you’re right. But while I try to save money at the buffet, I also try to go for things that will satiate my appetite.

#1 Avoid the moist foods

This is #1 because it’s the hardest to do by far. If any buffet manager knows his business, he knows to inject as much water into the foods as possible. Why? Because adding moisture is a cheap way to increase the weight. And since you’re paying by the pound, the more it weighs, the more you pays.

So here are some of the foods to avoid:

• Chinese food: For example, the General Tso’s chicken, sweet and sour chicken, lo mein noodles. Since the chicken is deep-fried, it absorbed all that grease. And then it’s stir-fried in the sauce that clings to it like honey. And those noodles are boiled (absorb water) and fried in more sauce. Put all that together and you have some pretty dense, heavy foods.
• “Sushi”: I put that in quotes because it’s not real sushi and barely substitutes for it. But everything they put in that roll is solidified with water: rice, avocado, fake crab, etc. If you want real sushi, go buy it at a real sushi bar. You’ll probably get 5x the amount for the same price, and of higher quality.
• Pasta Salads: Whether they’re made with mayo or oil, pasta salads are dense and heavy because of the water in the pasta and in the dressing. Plus, they add onions, olives, tomatoes and other weighty bits just to pack on the pounds.
• Things with Bones: Why would you buy chicken wings and fried chicken on the buffet when half of the weight (at least) is bones? You can’t eat the bones, so if you want chicken, go boneless.
• Fruit: Ok, I know this is probably THE only nutritious thing on the whole buffet, but hear me out. Fruit is like 95% water, and if you want to buy fruit, I recommend just buying it whole at the supermarket. You can easily rack up $10 with a few chunks of oranges and apples (my officemate hit $12!).

So what can you actually buy then? Well outside of pointing out that you shouldn’t really be buying your lunches and dinners at these buffets, I will say that you do have some options if you have no other choice.

The items I found that were a decent value and still filled my belly were things like

• fried tofu (the dry kind, not moist)
• green beans (no sauce)
• fried rice (less moisture than steamed)
• leafy salads (no dressing)

#2 Choose small portions

Ok, the little list of good value foods is pretty bland and boring. But that doesn’t mean you’re reduced to eating cardboard for lunch. Instead, pick and choose your foods wisely so that you have a majority of “value foods” mixed with a few “yummy foods”. For instance, have a bed of lettuce, some tofu and green beans on the side, and some pasta salad or Chinese food (just one or two pieces). You get to savor the taste of the Far East while keeping some more cash in your wallet or purse.

#3 Weigh the food while dishing it out

If you’re not sure if the food is a good value, just pick up a piece of it with the tongs or spoon and feel how heavy it is. Compare it to other dishes’ weights. For example, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted some Chinese chicken or lasagna, so I picked up a piece of each and decided based on which felt lighter.

#4 Use the smaller containers

If you have the option of a large vs small container, go for the smaller one. Since you can fit less food inside the smaller container, you wont’ be tempted to get more food than you should eat or can afford.

Summary

So to recap, while you can find more frugal lunches elsewhere, like PB&J sandwiches, if you’re in a pinch, you can still find a relatively good value at these “pay-per-pound” buffets bars. However, you have to be really careful in what you buy or else you’ll find that 2 pounds of bananas looks a lot lighter than it really is. Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach, because the only loser is your wallet.

_{Photo by Coffee Monster}

Sept 2007:

Visitors: 16308
Pageviews: 26588

Sept 2008:

Visitors: 31684
Pageviews: 50730

Subscribers

While I haven’t crossed the 2,000 subscriber mark yet, I’m hoping to do so this month. My peak in September was 1,953. Oooh, so close!

How about helping me get to 2,000 by either pulling my RSS feed or subscribing via email.

Traffic Sources

At a high level:

Search Engines: 45%

Referring Sites: 30%

Direct Traffic: 25%

At the end of the month, I had a slew of direct visitors, but as I found out with more analysis, Google Analytics was tagging them incorrectly. Actually, these visitors came from MSN or USNews to read my “Lower your household cleaning costs by 2000%” article. I got 2 months of hits out of this article as USNews featured it in August, and then MSN Saving and Debt blog picked it up again last week.

Top Personal Finance Blog Referrers

And now to what everyone (or at least every PF blog) reads this article for: my top referrers for September. You’ll see last month’s rank after the new rank in (). If they weren’t ranked last month, you’ll see a (-).

1. (4) No Credit Needed
2. (2) My Money Blog
3. (-) The Simple Dollar
4. (3) Five Cent Nickel
5. (5) Canadian Capitalist (PFN Buddy!)
6. (1) MSN Smart Spending
7. (6) Quest for Four Pillars (PFN Buddy!)
8. (7) Squawkfox (PFN Buddy!)
9. (-) Free Money Finance
10. (9) Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and (-) Blunt Money (PFN Buddy!)

As a note, the 5th PFN buddy, MoneyNing, barely missed the #10 spot. He was #11.

Top Non-PF Blog Referrers

1. Google Search (37%)
2. Direct Traffic (25%)
3. Yahoo! Search (4%)
   
4. Google Reader and Homepage (3%)
5. StumbleUpon
6. MSN Money
7. AOL Search
8. MSN Search (MSN and/or Live Search)
9. MetaSearch
10. Ask.com

Again, thanks to all my readers, fellow bloggers, commenters and scrapers for making this site such a success!

Here’s a sampling of our investments and their current gain/losses (hint: they’re all losses). Keep in mind, though, that this is the total loss since purchase, not just this year. Some funds/stocks were purchased years ago, while others were purchased more recently:

• EBAY: -34.02%. Apparently my hunch that people would be using eBay more with the market down was ill-timed with some radical changes enacted by executive management that caused a furor from sellers and buyers alike.
• PBW: -37.21%. This is a clean energy fund (ETF). It’s been taking a beating all year for some reason, but I’m too lazy to figure out why and too smart to sell when it’s down. I don’t need to “cut my losses” because I bought this for the long haul.
• GABEX: -8.98%. This is actually one of my better performing funds this year, until the last month. So much for their 5-star Morningstar rating. This is an equities securities fund.
• JAOSX: -28.51%. This is an overseas fund and was an awesome performer its first year, but tanked this year.
• NBPTX: -25.02%. This is a mid- to large-cap fund with over 2% invested in Berkshire Hathaway (had to throw that out there). It’s been so-so since I bought it
• PNRZX: -21.55%. Apparently you can’t even buy this fund anymore through eTrade, but it had its high points last year. The focus is Natural Resources (such as oil, gas and minerals) and of large companies specifically.

So those are the main assets in my Roth IRA, and my total return on my Roth since I opened it in 2005 is -25.66%. Wow, it was up on the positive that high just last year! How much difference a year and a bad economy can make.

My Rollover IRA, which contains my 401(k) investments from 2 past employers, has a similar portfolio mixture and is down -22.63% since inception (around 2005).

It hurts to see how much we lost, but I’ll restate that since we’re still young, we shouldn’t change our investment strategy drastically. The intent was to buy stocks and funds that we would hold at least 3-5 years and then reevaluate. Now is reevaluation time for a few of these funds, and since they’re down, I’m not selling at a loss!

But for those of you closer to retirement, I don’t envy you one bit. I’m sure you’re finding that even the wisest investment decisions have taken a beating and you may even have to postpone retirement for a few more years until you’ve made back some of these losses. Just remember, you can never time the market as an investment strategy and expect to always win.

About FoodTrader.Org

The Environmental Finance Center at the University of Maryland launched Foodtrader.org, a virtual farmer’s market that connects both buyers and sellers with local food as soon as it is harvested. In concert with sister site Agtrader.org, Foodtrader.org gives consumers access to the rich diversity of agricultural resources within the state of Maryland.

The Environmental Finance Center is the first organization to provide an online venue for letting the general public know when food is harvested, how much food is available, and where that food can be purchased outside of local farmers markets. With Foodtrader.org, farmers can create an instantaneous listing that will identify the description, quantity, price, and location of their items. Consumers can search listings within specific categories and communicate directly with the farmer to buy the food at the farm, at a farmers market or at another prearranged location.

Since the website will act as a marketplace, all transactions are the responsibility of the buyer and seller. The website is dynamic and allows traders to quickly register and then post anytime without filling out any forms. Pricing and delivery are left up to buyer and seller to work out on their own. Users cannot purchase items directly through the site; they must contact the producer who posted the item to work out pricing and delivery. The site will be monitored and maintained by the EFC staff. All information is kept private.

Currently, the site is designed for Maryland producers and consumers; as such, anyone outside the state is unable to create an account. However, anyone can visit the site, click on listings, and view listing details and producer contact information — that is, buy from anyone listing items for sale.

My Thoughts on FoodTrader.Org

Wow, what a cool concept! Where else could I easily find Goji plants (not that I’ve ever heard of them), or a whole, live goat? Some farmers even have pictures of their produce, and the chickens that I could be eating for dinner tonight! Check out the listings page for current available produce/meat/etc.

I can also find out where all the Maryland farmers markets are being held, with times, dates and contact information. And if, for some reason, I had produce that someone else wanted, I can find them on the Wanted pages. I wonder if anyone wants squirrel, because that’s about all I can find around here.

As far as criticisms of the site, I wish I could search for offers near my zip code, but otherwise the site seems pretty easy to navigate and use. I haven’t created an account yet, but if I find something interesting and close by, I just might.

So do any of you have experience with FoodTrader.org or something similar in your own state? Let me know.

_{This was NOT a paid or sponsored review}