There’s a good post today at Wise Bread making the argument that going to college just for the learning doesn’t make sense. In a nutshell, the post makes the case that, with only some peculiar exceptions, a person can learn 
stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
Of course, a person should probably go to college anyway. It’s just that learning things is not, per se, reason enough to spend four years and a modest fortune in tuition. There are good dollars and cents motivations for college and keeping a clear head about them is important.
(I haven’t researched this, but I write this blog under the assumption that my readership amongst high schoolers is zero. So to a certain extent this discussion is, you will pardon the expression, academic. Perhaps there are parents of high schoolers reading.)
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Sometimes topics crop up in the PF blogosphere, seemingly out of nowhere, and rattle around from blog to blog for a while. Dollar cost averaging is a recent example. The Digerati Life brought it up on September 23, Lazy Man and Money responded the next day, and The Sun’s Financial Diary shared its 
thoughts on the 28th. There are probably several other mentions out there I missed.
Before I add my voice to the echo chamber, I’ll define the term. Dollar cost averaging refers to buying an investment, usually a stock or stock fund, over time in installments of equal dollar value.
It is often confused with the laudable and similar idea of regularly saving. Setting aside a certain amount of your pay every week or month may look like dollar cost averaging, but it’s not exactly the same thing. Implicit in the question "is dollar cost averaging a good idea" is the premise that there is an alternative, that you could have invested it all at once rather than slowly as you earned it.
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Yes friends, it’s October’s first Friday, so time for your favorite feature, Frugal Friday. (Finally!)
We’ll start this month out with some news from the cultural front. Frugal Duchess brought us news of a survey done by allyou.com/Shortcuts.com. Respondents were asked to choose between four possible improvements to 
their lives: more sex, an extra $50 a week, drop one clothing size, or an extra hour a day of free time.
I believe that the combination of the Great Recession and the good work that I and others have been doing to spread the word about frugality must have done some good, because no less than 57% of people picked $50 more a month. In fact, they even rank ordered the other three correctly: drop a size, more sex and then finally an extra hour. (Of course, the question is a no-brainer. With $50 more a month you can buy the other three.)
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Yesterday’s New York Times carried a column worth reading by David Brooks. It is a little confused, even by the standards of Times columns, but the 
gist of it is a call to arms for a brand new culture war, this one over money.
I’m all for that.
Brooks starts out by recalling a centuries old idea.
The theory was that great nations start out tough-minded and energetic. Toughness and energy lead to wealth and power. Wealth and power lead to affluence and luxury. Affluence and luxury lead to decadence, corruption and decline.
This was a theory invented for, and more or less exclusively applied to, the fall of the Roman Empire. But don’t let the fact that it’s long since been cast aside by historians distract you. Brooks thinks we’ve gone soft.
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It’s the last Tuesday of the month, and that means it’s S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index Data Release Day. This month’s dollop continues the recent upswing we have seen in the past few months, so is not very newsworthy. (According to official 
media sources, to be newsworthy it must either be a change in direction from the month before, or be down. Ideally both.)
In case you haven’t seen the numbers, which is likely, I’ll pass along the highlights. The 20-city composite was up 1.6% for July. That’s three up months in a row. The index is now up a not inconsiderable 3.6% since April.
Of course, that gain is dwarfed by the loss that went before. From July 2006 to April 2009 the index lost 32.6%. This little uptick leaves us 30.2% below the peak. And we are still down 4.2% for 2009.
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stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
College, PF Blogs | Frank Curmudgeon | 
October 6, 2009 11:59 am | 
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