DailyGenesis.com

I’m not a big T.G.I. Friday’s fan, but I was intrigued when I saw their new campaign for the “Right Portion, Right Price” menu. Those of you who know how I feel about portion sizes will find it no surprise that I love this campaign. I love the name, in fact. I think it’s great branding.

The tagline is: “Save that stuffed feeling for your wallet.” Nice. They are not only promoting the idea of smaller portions, but also charging less money for the right amount of food.

I’ve written before about what happened to Ruby Tuesday’s when they tried to reduce portion sizes. I think the difference there was that they didn’t change the price, at least not enough. I think this T.G.I. Friday’s campaign will be a good test of whether the public will accept a mainline chain restaurant trying to serve them a correct portion size, or if they will demand to stuff themselves beyond what is reasonable.

I am very interested to see the results of this campaign.

NPR’s Morning Edition is doing a series this week on borrowing money. Seems like a good topic since the economy is in a big bunch of hurt, caused mainly by over-extended credit.

Monday’s episode really struck me as they explained how research shows that the average American today saves about 1/2 of 1 percent of their income. That’s 0.5%. That’s like … nothing. In 1982, Americans saved an average of 11% of their income. From 11% to 0.5% in about 25 years. That is staggering.

So, I’ve decided to start my own series here on the blog. I’ll be covering how to manage money. This post is step one and in it I am going to share with you the secret to financial bliss. Wait for it … here it is:

Spend less than you earn.

How much less? I say at least 10% toward retirement, then another 10% at least in non-retirement accounts. All together, that’s 20%. More would be even better.

“But what am I saving it for,” you ask. See, that’s the big question. Why save money if you’re not ever going to spend it? You can’t take it with you, right?

But here’s the little secret — it takes money to make money. If you save up money, you can then invest that money into efforts that will produce more money, until eventually you can earn substantial income off of the assets you have accumulated. This is what builds financial freedom.

I don’t believe that enormous wealth is necessarily a good goal to shoot for, but I do believe financial freedom is a good thing which can be achieved by most anyone with the discipline to spend less than they earn.

A McDonald’s hamburger costs around 80 cents, but when my parents were young, I think they were around a dime or something. But nobody complains about the price of a McDonald’s hamburger. Prices rise. It happens.

People my age grew up with gas that was considered expensive any time it broke $1. Now, there are growing outcries as the price tops $3.50 (regular unleaded, OKC prices). True, this over 300% increase has happened largely over the past eight years. Such a rapid move up in prices on a product we all use is sure to get attention.

But here’s why I think gas prices aren’t really that high — because demand for gas hasn’t fallen off. Most reports have shown that throughout this dramatic move up, people have continued to consume gas at the same rates, and I’ve heard some speculate that oil will have to reach $150 per barrel before demand really lessens. I know I’m just an outsider looking at this from a limited perspective, but I also know that in my own life and the lives of most people I know, our driving habits haven’t truly changed much in reaction to the rising costs.

So if gas can increase 300% without seeing much change in demand, I don’t believe it’s overpriced. Rather, I believe it was artificially under-priced previously.

When demand falls, prices will stabilize. But for demand to fall, we’ll have to make some changes. We’ll have to start treating energy like any other budgeted item — separating what we “need” from what we “want” and managing our consumption accordingly. Businesses might have to do more web meetings to reduce their airfare costs. Families might have to recognize that every trip, even in town, has a price tag, then let that impact the number of trips taken.

How do you plan to adjust your energy consumption in response to the rising prices?

I’ve taken an interest in our country’s healthcare system lately. It seems to be quite a big topic with the presidential candidates and, from what I can tell with my limited perspective, it seems like it could use a good bit of help.

One thing that I’ve found interesting in the last couple of days is a series of stories on NPR’s All Things Considered where they are taking a look at the health care systems of other wealthy nations. On Monday, they reviewed Japan’s system and on Tuesday, they reported on Taiwan. I look forward to hearing more stories in this series.

It is certainly helpful and interesting to look at what other nations are doing, but it really doesn’t solve anything. Each system just has its own set of pros and cons. It simply reinforces the fact that healthcare is a huge and far-reaching issue that will never be easily solved, yet somehow, I think our nation is going to have to address it soon.

Since I have such a limited perspective, I try to refrain from making many judgments, but I do have two thoughts to share.

First, the report on Taiwan indicated that the Taiwanese government spends about 6% of its GDP on healthcare, and provides complete government-sponsored coverage for all citizens. The US spends closer to 15%, and we only cover people over 65 and we don’t even provide as much coverage for them. They also indicated that the percentage the US spends is pretty high compared to most wealthy nations. Now, I’m not saying that this is apples to apples, but it is at least a bit of an indication that our nation could afford to be more efficient in its provision for health care.

Second, I am a pretty big-time fiscal conservative, believing that a free market is the best path to growth and prosperity, yet I can’t help but think healthcare doesn’t react the same to an open market as other industries. The supply and demand relationship doesn’t seem to work the same way when people have to have the product (healthcare) in order to live. What is the value of a surgery if that surgery will save your life? Can an open and free market system balance these issues? I tend to think that healthcare to some degree will have to have heavier government regulation and even possibly government-sponsored programs. Of course, this really isn’t all that novel since we already do have government healthcare through medicare, it just is limited to people over 65.

So, what am I saying? I’m saying that I hope there are a whole lot of people smarter and more well informed than me working on this issue, because it is very complex, unusual, and in need of some help. And no matter what sound bites the presidential candidates from either party throw out, I seriously doubt there are any simple solutions to this problem.

It strikes me how we, as a people, are so reactionary. A bridge collapses somewhere in the US, and all of a sudden everyone becomes concerned with bridge safety. Now, it’s not a bad thing to be concerned with bridge safety, but all of the effort and attention that bridge safety will now receive will have to pull attention and effort from some other area. That is, until another tragedy happens.

It seems to me that if we could ever learn that it is impossible to predict the future, and that extreme events will inevitably happen from time to time, we could all become a little more tempered and controlled in our reactions. This would enable us to maintain a consistent and calm approach across the gamut of our circumstances, rather than throwing bursts of energy here and there based on the emergency of the moment.

I think this applies to so many things in life. It affects the way we view politics, finance, the economy and other issues on a mass scale, but I also think it applies to individuals as well. Couldn’t we all learn to better control our reactions when we encounter extreme circumstances? If we could, wouldn’t it help us to maintain better balance and consistency in our lives?