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Month: January 2019

Is the Kubo Rich Life Green?

Published by TheKuboQueen on January 27, 2019
The very green Bavarian countryside. Our German friends took us to tour the two famous castles in Bavaria.

Here at the Kubo, we’ve been what might be labelled frugal for quite a while. For the most part, Kubo King doesn’t care for a closet full of clothes or the latest iPhone, and I’ve been a penny-pincher since I went away to college and had to start paying my own rent. Over time, our natural tendencies to resist being consumers have been reinforced — by learning about investing and financial independence on his part; and by learning about the minimalist movement on my part. At the intersection of these two movements, we have found common ground on handling our money.

In 2018, though, a third motivation to reduce consumption was brought to our attention.

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A Windfall; or, Student Debt Progress Report

Published by TheKuboKing on January 19, 2019

I’m back with another student debt progress report. As I mentioned in a previous article, back in December, I had reached the midpoint in my student debt balance. In other words, I’d paid half of what I owe in student loans by December, bringing my student debt down to $16,743. That’s after only five months of being employed and making regular monthly payments. And note that what I owed in student loans prior to that was around $35,000. I’d say I’ve made some great progress towards my goal of paying it off in a year. But why am I paying it off aggressively? Well the reasons have already been laid out in the previous article, so please check that out for more details. However, the short version is that I think having any type of debt hinders your life. So, to me, it’s a great idea to put the majority of your extra money (money not used for monthly expenses on bills, food, and transportation) towards paying off your debt.

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This Year, Become Debt Free

Published by TheKuboKing on January 13, 2019

When I was 19 years old I worked part-time at a famous burger chain on the West Coast for $10 an hour. It was more than what the other burger chains were paying its workers. So my coworkers and I thought that we were getting paid a lot of money at the time. This sentiment became more apparent when, after a staff meeting, one of them started talking about the brand-new car he had just bought (with a car loan) within three months of being hired. A group of us became curious so we followed him to the parking lot to see what the car was all about. It turned out to be a nice modest American car (think Ford Focus or Chevy Cruze). Naturally, I wanted to know how much he had financed it for, and so I asked him. I can’t recall how much it was now, but I do remember being uncomfortable at the thought of taking out such a loan; especially for something like buying a brand-new car. All I could think about was how dependent I would be on my part-time job in order to make the monthly car loan payments. I was still only a teenager, and it was only supposed to be a temporary job. So it didn’t sit well with me. And now that I’m a little older, my revulsion at the thought of being in significant amounts of debt is even stronger.

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The Merchants of Doubt and Their Dangerous Product

Published by TheKuboQueen on January 5, 2019

The conclusion of Merchants of Doubt begins with this scene:

Imagine a gigantic banquet. Hundreds of millions of people come to eat. They eat and drink to their hearts’ content — eating food that is better and more abundant than at the finest tables in ancient Athens or Rome, or even in the palaces of medieval Europe. Then, one day, a man arrives, wearing a white dinner jacket. He says he is holding the bill. Not surprisingly, the diners are in shock. Some begin to deny that this is their bill. Others deny that there even is a bill. Still others deny that they partook of the meal. One diner suggests that the man is not really a waiter, but is only trying to get attention for himself or to raise money for his own projects. Finally, the group concludes that if they simply ignore the waiter, he will go away.

Who among us wouldn’t be reluctant to pick up that tab? But the above anecdote isn’t about an imaginary feast at all — it’s actually about industrial civilization’s feast on energy from fossil fuels. And the bill? It’s also real. It’s the environmental consequences of this feast, which include global warming. But actually, how can the authors make such a bold statement about global warming when the science behind it is still mired in controversy?

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