JordanLyall.com

"Purging the Bookcase" or "My Many Interesting Phases"

In preparation for baby, I’m cleaning out our second bedroom. I’m getting rid of a bunch of books I’ll probably never read again. I sure have had some peculiar interests. Here’s a random sample:

• Sports Style Guide & Reference Manual
• Tim Sweeny’s Guide to Releasing Independent Records
• Beyond Roots: In Search of Blacks in the Bible
• The Clock of the Long Now: The Ideas Behind the World’s Slowest Computer
• The Tao of Sales
• Podcasting Hacks
• Y2K: It’s Already Too Late
• Hunger, Hunches, & Hustle: An Englishman’s 40 Years of Selling Experiences and Misadventures in California Real Estate

Jordan Lyall’s Top 10 Albums of 2008

This is a list of my favorite albums this year. I’m not trying to claim these as the “absolute best” albums, it comes down to personal preference. These are albums I had a change to pick up in the last 12 months. If you have any recommendations for me, email me at jordan.lyall [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks and enjoy!

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes released their first full-length album last Summer. They call their music “baroque harmonic pop jams” and have been compared to The Beach Boys. Beautiful, beautiful music. @atubbs says “Opening the Fleet Foxes CD reminds me what buying a record must have been like.” Amazon | Listen to “White Winter Hymnal”

2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular MGMT (pronounced “management”) can be categorized as “Indie Electro Pop.” The album is catchy and danceable, though I wouldn’t have minded if the last few tracks were left off. @spencerante calls it “Flaming Lips meets Daft Punk.” Amazon | Listen to “Time to Pretend”

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend’s debut album of the same name is packed with melodious modern grooves. Very fun. @blahbleorg enjoys their “Great afro beats and pop hooks.”
Amazon | Listen to “Oxford Comma”

4. Santogold - Santogold Santi White (a.k.a Santogold) says her intentions with this her first solo album were to “help break down boundaries and genre classifications.” She succeeds with these infectious, foot-stomping tracks. @current_music calls it “a new kind of funky music.” Amazon | Listen to “Lights Out”

5. She & Him - Volume One She & Himis what you get when you mix indie rocker M. Ward and “that chick from Elf” (Zooey Deschanel). Simple melodies and one amazing voice. Side note: Deschanel is now engaged to Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard. Talk about some talented offspring. To @frickness the album “sounds like: Sufjan Stevens, the Everly Brothers, [and] even the intro to Spongebob” Amazon | Listen to “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”

6. The Cool Kids - Bake Sale The second EP for the Chicago-based rap duo is what I would call “infectiously obnoxious.” Hip-hop is fun again. @jchristie regards Bake Sale as a “fun, bass-heavy retro CD.”
Amazon | Listen to “Bassment Party”

7. Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster This debut album from Welsh indie rockers Los Campesinos is a sugar rush of guitar-heavy pop punk. Another fun, energetic album. @davidalln relates there’s “nothing like waking up to Los Campesinos!’s You! Me! Dancing!” Amazon | Listen to “Death to Los Campesinos!”

8. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs Though Death Cab’s sixth studio album didn’t quite live up to some of their previous albums, it proved that they can still turn out quality indie-blues. @movingsideways says it’s “a great ‘riding alone on a train after a long holiday’ album.” Amazon | Listen to “I Will Possess Your Heart”

9. Beck - Modern Guilt Beck is back! Produced by Danger Mouse, Modern Guilt, the 10th album from Beck, unveils some of his retro styles. @therichbrooks “found it boring on first listen, but finding more layers after additional listens. Amazon | Listen to “Gamma Ray”

10. The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing Yet another debut album made the list. You may have heard this English pop duo on a commercial slinging iPods. Rolling Stone calls it “peppy New Wave.” @wende opines: “people either love them or hate them. Clearly, I’m in the former.” Amazon | Listen to “Great DJ”

Six Steps to Financial Peace of Mind

These are just some things that have worked for us. They may not work for everybody. This is  not to say we do things perfectly, we still sometimes fail when it comes to finances.

Here’s a list of things I recommend doing:

1. Create an emergency fund. Save up 3 months worth of living expenses. Save it in a high interest bearing account (see below). It’s not easy, but this money should only be used in emergency situations. Not when things go on sale, not when it’s time for vacation – emergency – if you lose your job, if you’re hit with unexpected medical bills, etc. You may not ever use this cash, but you’d be amazed at the peace of mind it brings (and the interest it earns).
2. Don’t use credit cards. With one exception (see below), credit cards should be off limits. If you have to buy something with a credit card (and stretch payments months into the future) you can’t afford it. Buy everything with cash. If it’s worth buying, it’s worth saving up for.
3. Get a “Cash Back” credit card and pay off every month. We use Blue from American Express. It gives you cash back on certain purchases. Up to 2% on groceries and gas. We use it for 85% of what we buy, even some bills. Once a year we get a credit to our account for a few hundred bucks. Free money, people!
4. Get a High-Interest Savings account. Interest rates for savings accounts have come down a bit in the last year or two, but they still blow your bank’s standard savings account out of the water. We use ING Direct. Though competitive, their interest rate is not the highest you’ll find, but their website is great. You can also create separate accounts and label them for specific purchases. (Let me know if you want to create an account with ING. I’ll send you a referral code and we both can earn extra cash.)
5. Track your spending. This is a no brainer. You can’t control something you don’t track. This should be step one. Even if you don’t yet start budgeting, just by simply tracking every dollar spent will you start to subconsciously start to be a bit more frugal. Same thing goes with calorie intake. Even without dieting, by simply writing down every bit of food you eat, you’ll soon find yourself controlling what you eat. Managing money and watching what you eat are very similar.
6. Use an online money management tool like Yodlee or Mint. Many sites are popping up that allow you to pull together all of your financial accounts. We use Yodlee MoneyCenter. I log in and see an overall snapshot of our financial situation. One site shows me the balance of the many accounts I own, my upcoming bills, recent transactions, and much more.

Bonus

Budget. We’ve found YNAB (You Need A Budget) quite useful for budgeting and tracking our spending. We’re far from perfect in this area, we’ve started and stopped many times, but we still see this as valuable. It’s a piece of software and a fresh take on budgeting. Check it out.