How do you spend your day? Compared to everyone

Sleeping, eating, working and watching television take up about two-thirds of the average day according to an interesting interactive graph from the New York Times. Quoting from the article, "The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day." I found the graph interesting because of the huge amount of time the average American spends watching TV and movies. For those over 65, the TV and movies segment of their daily lives, almost becomes the most dominant activity. The TV and movies sector seems to be consistent over all of the population categories. The only groups that seem to be somewhat resistant to the lure of the TV are those with advanced degrees and/or with larger families.

It is also interesting to note the difference in the activities of the unemployed vs. the employed. Again to quote, "On an average weekday, the unemployed sleep an hour more than their employed peers. They tidy the house, do laundry and yard work for more than two hours, twice as much as the employed. The unemployed also spend an extra hour in the classroom and an additional 70 minutes in front of the television." So much for the theory that they might spend some time looking for work.

How do you stack up?

Reacting vs. Acting

Do you react to crisis or do you act in advance of crisis? The current classic example is the so-called 72 hour kit. This is a box, pack or duffel bag of necessities that can be quickly used in case of evacuation from your home. There are hundreds of Websites with suggested contents for these emergency supplies and some that sell the entire bag complete.

But reacting vs. acting go much deeper than just being ready to leave your home on a minute's notice. Some of the categories of areas that require proactive response are:

Employment
Investing
Planning for retirement
Medical challenges

Not to mention the usual natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes or any other circumstance that might force you out of your home.

In today's precarious economic conditions, far more people are likely to suffer from challenges in finances from employment issues than will be affected by natural disasters. Acting in the area of employment includes continuing education and contingency planning, always thinking about what would happen if you were to lose your job and then thinking of the possible causes, i.e. illness, plant shut downs, etc.

It is now time to take control of you life and begin to act rather than react.

Living within your means

There is a lot of buzz today about global warming, sustainable agriculture, the green revolution and other world issues. When it comes right down to it, living within your means includes all of these issues and a lot more. Unfortunately, living within your means has gained an association with poverty. But you do not have to be poor to live within your means. Simply put, living within your means involves spending less than you make. It does not mean that you have to live on a farm or grow your own food, it just means having a budget and having some control over your spending habits.

Most of the ways I read about to save money are really marginal. If you really want to save money, you need to know how much you are presently spending. That means you track every penny of your expenditures. You need to know exactly, not approximately, and not a ball park figure. Once you know your present rate of spending and obligations, you have to continue to track spending for many months and years. There are some expenses that are annual, like real estate taxes, and others that may only come up after years, like the cost of replacing the roof on your house. But all of these costs need to be considered.

Once you know what it costs to live, you can start making adjustments to your spending based on realistic evaluations of your actual needs. Do you really need the air conditioning set to 72 degrees in the summer? Do you really need to buy a case of water every week? Could you save money by buying a different car? Do you really need to eat out two or three times a week? Once you answer these questions you are ready to live within your means.

Let's get some definitions down, if you owe debts and are paying interest, by definition you are not living within your means. If you were living within your means you would have no interest payments. There is an argument that if you have a piece of property that generates income, you can carry the interest as a cost of doing business, but most consumer debt is not offset by specific income.

Living within your means is not an issue as to how you spend your money. It is an issue about whether or not to spend money at all. Fundamentally, it addresses the problem of owning things or being owned by them. Let me give an example. One of the most common big ticket item purchases in Arizona is some kind of outdoor motor vehicle; a boat, an ATV, a jet ski, a motor home or something similar. I have no problem with spending money on any of these items. What I think is the problem, is purchasing a _________ [fill in the blank] when you have a burden of consumer debt. How many of the people in my neighborhood who have lost their homes to foreclosure have one or more of these outdoor vehicles? By observation, I would say quite a few.

I have no argument with someone who chooses to purchase any one or more of the items listed above, what I do have an argument with is purchasing a consumer toy at the expense of borrowing money to purchase a house or to pay for necessities. This example applies at all income levels. It is just as difficult for a person making a lot of money to live within their means as it is for a person living below the poverty level.

Unless and until we achieve a balance between what we need and can afford and what we purchase, we will never live within our means.

National news coverage of food storage

It is apparent that the national economic difficulties have finally resulted in some national news coverage of the welfare system of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a major article dated July 8, 2009, The Washington Post ran a story entitled "The Mission: Put Up in Bulk." As the author of the article notes, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints runs 101 dry-pack canneries, which are housed in multi-function home storage centers (see sidebar). The church doesn't intend the facilities to be public but won't turn away nonmembers. It wants everyone to have a three-month supply and be working toward a year's stockpile."

I suggest you read the entire article. Link. As the author notes the Church canning facilities "people are allowed to package only dry food stocked by the center. (It's possible to buy in bulk from the center as well without processing the food at the cannery. And food can be packed in pouches as well as cans.)"

The author also found out that dry-pack canning is not free. She says, "And then, slight sticker shock hit me: I had canned $217 worth of dried goods. In choosing foods my family uses frequently, I hadn't kept track of how many cans there were. Each of the six 4.3-pound cans of spaghetti cost me $4.05. My 15 cans of apple slices came to $73.50."

Despite the price paid by the author, dry-pack canning is highly economical and a good way to increase your food storage.

High tech cheating in children

More than 1/3 of teens with cell phones admit to cheating in school at least once. This is one of the conclusions of a newer study of the interaction of teenagers with cell phones, iPods and PDAs. The study from Common Sense Media and the Benenson Strategy Group conducted a poll of teenagers and parents on the use of digital media for cheating in school. Two-thirds of teenagers today own cell phones*, and most 8- to 12-year-olds will own a cell phone in the next three years**. And those numbers are only a small representation of our kids’ 24/7 media world. The study is called "Hi-Tech Cheating: Cell Phones and Cheating in Schools."

In looking at the Common Sense Media Website, may have a laudable goal, but their level of acceptance of modern media surely exceeds mine or my childrens' level of acceptance. The Benenson Strategy Group appears to be a strategic research and consulting firm.

The study also found that half (52%) of teens admitted to using some form of cheating involving the Internet. In fact, two-thirds of all teens say others in their school cheat with cell phones. Nearly 1 in 4 students think that acts like accessing notes on their cell phone during a test, texting friends with answers during a test and using their cell to search the internet for answers during a test aren't cheating at all! To quote the survey:

For example, only 41% say that storing notes on a cell phone to access during a test is cheating and a “serious offense.” And almost 1 in 4 (23%) don’t think it’s cheating at all. Similarly, only 45% say texting friends about answers during tests is cheating and a serious offense, while 20% say it’s not cheating at all. More than a third (36%) say that downloading a paper from the Internet to turn in isn’t a serious cheating offense, and almost 1 in 5 (19%) say it isn’t cheating at all.

On the other hand their parents are in total denial: The study shows, again quoting:

Parents are quite realistic when it comes to the frequency of cheating in schools – they just don’t believe it happens in their own backyard. 76% say cell phone cheating happens at their child’s school. But perhaps not surprisingly, just 3% of parents say their child has ever cheated with cell phones. Similarly, 79% say teens at their child’s school download papers from the Internet to turn in as their own work, but only 7% say their child has done this.

Here are some quotes from students in the study:

[I don’t cheat] that often, just
when I think the test is unfair…
the teacher gives questions
that are too hard or they did not
prepare us for… I guess it’s
cheating… using work that isn’t
your own is cheating, but I don’t
really think about it.” – student

I only [downloaded a paper or
report from the Internet] once
when I was in 6th grade because
my teacher had us do a project
that I knew nothing about…
I tried to find information, but it
was taking too long as it had to
be five pages and I started the
night before. So I decided I
should turn that in instead of
nothing.” – student

If someone is texting during
a test and looks suspicious, it’s
obvious they are cheating…
the teachers don’t really see
because the person texting
looks for them and hides their
phone when the teacher comes
by.” – student.

Cheating harms both society and the cheater. Is it any wonder that students fail to learn?

Where are we in 2009?

Each of us might ask where we are, financially speaking, in 2009? Here are a few observations primarily from the Statistical Abstract of the United States, unless otherwise noted:

It is estimated that in 2009 there may be as many as 1.4 million personal bankruptcies filed. However, in 2003 there were 1,650,279 personal bankruptcies filed.

Back in 1953, 31.1 percent of the U.S. population lived at or below 125% of the poverty level. By 2006 that number had dropped to 16.8 percent.

In constant 2006 U.S. dollars, the median income for all families in 1949 was $39,303. By 2006 the median income for all families had grown to $78,454.

Based on the value of the 1982 dollar, the value of that dollar had fallen by more than half by 2007.

Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures undergone by women aged 15–44 in the United States and in 2005 there were an estimated 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States. This number exceeds, by a large margin, the death rate from any other cause in the U.S.

From these, and many other statistics, we may better ask, where are morally in 2009?

My conclusion is that we are consistently better off today economically than ever before. Despite the hand wringing going on about our economy, however, there should be hand wringing going on about the morality of the country. We are in a terrible state morally and should we continue in our decline, we will ultimately lose our way financially also.

Remember the words of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon: " And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers. Mosiah 1:7

A decline in literacy?

Historically, learning to read and write were considered the mark of education. How well are we doing in teaching our students to read? According to the U.S. Department of Education, literacy is defined "as the knowledge and skills needed by adults, in life and at work, to use information from various texts (e.g., news stories, editorials, manuals, brochures) in various formats (e.g., texts, maps, tables, charts, forms, time tables)" Unfortunately, there has been almost uniform steady decline in literacy rates for those 24 years of age and younger from 1992 to the most recent studies in 2003. Even among college students there has been a decline and there is even a decline among graduate students.

By definition in our modern society, we cannot be prepared if we do not know how to read.

Some of the results of the survey in 2003 are in the category of things I wish some one would pay me to find out. Like, "In 2003, adults with higher literacy levels were more likely to be employed full-time and less likely to be out of the labor force than adults with lower literacy levels. Adults with lower literacy levels also generally earned lower incomes."

Even if the differences in literacy levels are considered to be statistically insignificant, it is significant the we have made no progress in increasing literacy for many years. Additionally, adults in the U.S. were outperformed by adults in Norway, Bermuda, Canada, and Switzerland. Adults in Bermuda, Norway, and Canada had higher literacy scores than U.S. adults at both the high and low ends of the score distribution. The highest performers (the top 10 percent of adults) had literacy scores of 353 or higher in Bermuda, 348 or higher in Norway, and 344 or higher in Canada, compared with 333 or higher in the United States. The lowest performers (those in the bottom 10 percent) in Bermuda had literacy scores of 213 or lower, 233 or lower in Norway, and 209 or lower in Canada, compared with 201 or lower in the United States. The lowest performers in Switzerland also outperformed their U.S. counterparts in literacy, scoring 216 or lower.

One thing this study does show is that literacy is directly correlated to income levels.

Over the years I have encountered a significant number of adults that did not know how to read or whose reading skills were so low as to be embarrassing to the individual. Obviously, if you were illiterate you would not be reading this blog post, but if you know someone who is illiterate, the time to take action is now. There are many national, state and local organizations dedicated to helping adults learn to read. You might want to start with the Department of Labor, Adult Literacy and Education Initiative.