Gardening? Gardening!

Trent at The Simple Dollar has a post up about gardening as a way to save gobs of cash. I agree wholeheartedly, coming from a family of inveterate gardeners. My grandmother once had every square inch of her property planted, even the old wrecked tractor. I try to carry on the tradition, but with less work involved. Besides, it's a way for the Cat & I to spend some time together out in the sun.

Trent's on about tomatoes-- and I would recommend:

--Companion Planting--

This is not about taking a pot of fennel to the Singles Bar to find a mate. Rather, certain plants work well together. Others don't. And planting certain plants in groups-- the kinds of groups you might find out in nature-- they become more resistant to pests & disease. I even think they taste better.

A standard companion planting, or "guild:"

1. Tomatoes mmm
2. Asparagus mmmm
3. Basil mmmmmmm

Keep them away from potatoes & cabbage. They don't get along. Turf wars!

Maybe the most famous "guild" is the Three Sisters, which the Native Americans knew & loved:

1. Corn (which is tall)
2. Beans (which climb the corn & fix nitrogen)
3. Squash (which hangs out down below, filling in the space left over)

The main idea, then, is to fill in all the available spaces in your garden. Nature does this of her own accord when left alone, and it makes for a healthier system; humankind tends to put things in neat rows, which requires more land & labor, as it frees up space for weeds to come in, breaks up & leaches healthy soil, and allows weaker plants to thrive, thus inviting pests & disease.

There are a lot of great books on the topic, like and . But most importantly, try things out and watch your space. Then, as you learn what does and doesn't work in your soil, your climate, and your available light, you can make small changes to improve the system. Books are a good (nowadays, even necessary) place to start, but nothing-- absolutely nothing-- beats experience for gardening & farming.

And remember to design your pets into the system. Zooey has a nice sideline as a night watchcat, keeping the local squirrel population out of the proverbial larder.

(I also like to prep my plantings with some super-nutritious worm castings, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... And disclosure: I have a very modest sideline as a permaculture designer, though I prefer the science of it to the hippie stuff it's picked up in America. I'm too much of a redneck to do my sun salutations.)

Index Funds Put the Fun in Fundamental Stock Investing

Next to Cat Fancy, I think The Economist is the best magazine on the stands. (Or "newspaper," as "Sir" would have it-- read the letters page sometime!) It's better-researched than anything, well-written, and even funny. And I think my mail carrier is reading my copy!

Usually I get it on Saturday, but this week's didn't arrive until Monday. The carrier had a mischievious grin on, too. I think he must have been jonesing on the Special Report all about asset management in this week's issue. It describes the radical changes in the mutual fund industry, explains hedge funds, demystifies some of the arcane jargon ("alpha" versus "beta"). Smart, smart, smart.

It also confirms what Bogleheads, those oddly-named devotees of John Bogle & Vanguard's indexing options, already know. Mutual funds are a loser's game, because you're paying for a fund manager who gets paid based on last year's performance, which may not be replicable. Even if the manager does well, taxes & fees will each up your profits. It's kind of scam, really.

Index funds just try to replicate the market. I have a core of my investments in Vanguard index funds, and then a (smaller) discretionary fund which I use for individual investing. Not at all sexy-- not at all something to boast about down at the club (if I were in the club!). But long term, it works.

And I feel smarter having read The Economist. Seriously, a couple of hours with this magazine is better than a week's worth of people yelling at you on CNBC.

How Your Business Can Help You Grow Your Cat

This article got me thinking. Hmmm. Does the door swing both ways? How to Grow Your Cat:

1. Providing delicious vittles for her gaping maw.
2. Reducing the need to keep in trim by outsourcing those laborious tasks.
3. Changing the lifestyle to one more sedentary, in keeping with those issues of girth & mirth so bothering our nation's health policy-makers
   

Oh no! I suppose there's a reason the phrase "Fat Cat" has always been associated with business. Let's unpack it:

• Given feline druthers, eating and sleeping top the to-do list. But when necessary, cats can be ruthless businessanimals, using high mark-ups and keeping margins down.
• So on any given plot of land, a cat can quickly rise to the top of the local economy. After a low-key IPO (Initial Public [H]owling-- a UK term) all the forest creatures know who's the brand new boss in town. But once the competition's downed, it's easy to get lazy...
  
• Worst of all, having a successful model has the danger of not developing further (notice I didn't say "growing"). Zooey might stop learning new skills and seeking new challenges-- at that point, as is sadly too often the case, feline diabetes can set in and wreck the health. And business health-- you cease to like your job, people work less hard, profits slowly decline. Then some Silicon Valley punk shows up with a new model and rips you to shred (it's happening in the newspaper business as we speak).
  

***

Meanwhile, the door seems to be swinging the wrong way in the economy. Ugh! Warren Buffet's one of the fattest of cats, portfolio-wise, so when he speaks we should all listen. I have been optimistic about the market, but perhaps I've been wrong (hard to admit, I'll admit).

Still, my hope is to stay the course somewhat. Half my portfolio's in index funds, so I have little to concern me there. They're long-term investments that seek to replicate the market; I just hope the market doesn't seek to replicate a busted toilet.

The other half, though, is individual stock investing. I have just a handful of positions-- less than ten-- and only one of my stocks got absolutely killed. But I believe in the company and their model, and want to hold on to it long-term. I'm waiting for even more of a pullback, in fact, before I act, though. We could have even more shrinkage...

Most importantly, on economic days like today, sit on the back porch and drink a mimosa. Really-- it's why we invest & save, right?

How You Cat Can Help Grow Your Business

Leap Year! Leapt!

Here's an interesting cat-business article:

How Your Cat Can Help You Grow Your Business by Cary Bayer

Mind, it's for a massage therapy business. I don't think #3 will help my business much ("let others touch you"). But, it got me thinking: how has Zooey taught me to grow our business? After all, she's a singular cat, not like the others.

Hmmmm.

1. Eat Those Smaller Than You. Zooey's an outdoor cat, and spends much of her time in that primordial cat-space unbeknown to sweater-wearing, Juicy Vittles-eating Mr MacMuffin next door. She lives in a Darwinian world, and would read Sun Tzu's Art of War were she so inclined. Many businessmen have benefited from its ruthless take on the business world, I must say. Were my cat a Fortune 500, M&As would rule the day.
   
2. Always Be Clean, Fresh, and Ready to Go. Though an outdoor cat, Zooey spends a lot of time tongue-primping. She's always fresh and shiny, with a well-groomed coat. I try to do the same: presentation matters, and first impressions last a lifetime for those of us who don't suffer concussions right after the first impression.
3. Keep on that Poker Face. Zooey loves me. How do I know? Good question. Best evidence so far is that she hangs around, eats the food I offer, and lives in the house I provided for her. Other than that, she's pretty standoffish. I get a "meow" now & then, but that's about it. In business, too, it's best not to be too forthcoming. Don't be a cold fish, but remember that a business relationship, however warm, is not a friendship. If you don't, you may wind up feeling betrayed down the line.

Or eaten. Yikes!

Secret Investment Opportunities...

...I have an old free junk email account I use for my personal messages, like sending pictures of my cat, rather than pictures of my monetized cat, which are reserved for this blog:

It always has these ads at the top, right? They crack me up. 25% back accounts, the lost investment opportunities of Alaska's unknown wilderness, the royal Saudi mythic money machine, blah blah blah. Today's was a corker. My interpretation:

Now, this could be real. I doubt it, but it could be. I haven't clicked on it to find out because I don't want cookies and spyware infesting my machine. Certainly, the outlandish claim and the graphic design (faux-sophisticated) lead me to think otherwise. Yes, Virginia, sometimes slick marketing can make you seem like a con artist.

But most of all, it promises a secret no one's talking about. Except in BANNER ADS ON THE TOP OF FREE EMAIL ACCOUNTS EVERYONE USES!!! For pity's sake!

The only secrets I want to know are:

1. Whether or not this girl is telling the truth when she says she's into me
2. Whether or not the butler did it
3. What my boss thinks of Maury
   

And usually, the best way to find out is just to ask.

When it rains...

...my body falls apart. That is to say:

1. I put a quick fix in the leaking roof, then we get hit with a wall of tornadoes.
2. I step outside to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, and we get hit with freezing temperatures and snow.
3. I get sick, this flu that's going around. BOY do I get sick, sweating through clothes and everything.
4. Markets have been sick anyway. I try not to look.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Which is to say: I was feeling better, but in reality the virus was just relocating to a different part of my body. You know? First headaches, then sinus, then fever & chills, then queasy intestinal horrors.

So I will (tenatively) be back to blogging here soon... I just haven't had the gumption...

Monetize? Monet-ize!

We're not just about the big bucks here. Below, an artistical impression: