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Potato Mines and Personal Finance
Apr. 11th, 2014 01:33 pmI've been playing a lot of Plants versus Zombies lately. Like a lot of games, this one involves building which in turn requires resources.
Early strategies
There are many strategies that work, but something Robin and I agree on is that it's best (most fun) to build up your resource generators (sunflowers) before trying to build anything else. Once you have enough sunflowers, you can stop worrying about resources completely and just focus on the other stuff.
So how does that compare to what I've been doing with my finances in real life? Real life does not compare favorably:
* Bad - I never tried to earn much money until my college financial aid package description explained that I had to contribute to my own college costs by having jobs.
* Bad - I started my adult life with negative capacity (student loans) in return for higher earning ability, but then I rarely used this ability.
* Good - I took out $2500 less in loans than I could have by living super frugally my senior year.
* Bad - My career has involved jobs that have barely paid my expenses for many, many years. When I did start having extra resources, the surplus was small for many more years. When it started getting quite good, I quit working that job. Now I'm back to minimal surplus income.
* Good - I bought a house. It cost me significantly more than renting during the year I bought it and the year I refinanced it, but now that it's paid off, it's costing me less.
Surviving the Resource-Building Period
In Plants vs. Zombies, Robin and I differ on how to handle our building needs (to defend ourselves against incoming zombies) while we're building up our resources. As soon as I see a zombie coming, I stop building sunflowers and wait until I have enough to build my favorite affordable defense (either the pea shooter or the cabbage lobber or maybe the buttery corn). (Note: I'm not using the exact right names for some of the plants, but if you play, you can probably figure out what I'm talking about.)
Robin likes to build a cheap, disposable, one-time-use weapon (the potato mine) for the first few zombies. This wastes resources, but lets him get to full capacity more quickly.
In real life, I clearly went for the potato mines. I still have some of that particle board and even cardboard furniture. And I remember the time in my life when I made the switch from potato mines to pea shooters by deciding to only buy durable furniture. And cars. (Clothing and food are tougher.)
Nevertheless, soon I'll be collecting my pension, which is like suddenly having all my sunflowers in place.
Mid-game strategies
In Plants vs. Zombies, you start off with an occasional low-level zombie coming in to your yard, but as time goes on, larger hordes of more and more powerful zombies approach. So you need to build up more and more powerful defenses to protect your brain. I'll quit building sunflowers and make sure to get pea shooters on every row (which holds off the weaker zombies), then add things like spikeweed and frozen pea shooters (for the tougher zombies), and then with some defensive back-ups thrown in (such as walnuts, tall-nuts, or chompers).
And how about in real life?
In some ways we do have more need of resources as we go through life - more and bigger medical bills, snootier tastes, inflation. But having all your furniture, housing, and college degrees in place can also mean you don't need as many resources.
My spending has definitely increased over time. Things I remember adding to my college budget include:
* higher food quality (such as frozen pizza made with real cheese instead of fake)
* car expenses (I became a car owner)
* medical insurance (woo hoo--I can afford that)
* other insurance
* charitable contributions
* savings for future health expenses
* investments
What are like the tougher plants that damage everything coming your way? (frozen pea shooter, gatling gun, melon lobber)? Maybe housing, transportation, skills.
What are like the defensive plants (walnuts, tall-nuts)? Insurance, computer back-ups, ear plugs, exercise, sleep, nutrition, friends, spirituality.
What are like the specialty plants that work on specific needs (magnet shrooms, umbrella plants)? Medicines and medical tests, I guess. Warm clothing for people like me who feel chilled a lot.
And what are like the all-purpose last-ditch plants when things are going wrong (potato mines, squash, jalapenos, cherry bombs)? Ibuprofen, physical therapy, hip replacements, emergency funds, passports, wills.
End-game strategies
How much will I be able to plan ahead for future challenges? And how much will I be scrambling in panic as each new challenge appears?
Admittedly, in Plants vs. Zombies, you get to see all your future challenges at the beginning of the game. So there's no need for magnet shrooms if there are no metal-bearing zombies. And no need for umbrella plants if there are no bungee zombies. And there's generally no need for jalapenos if you won't be facing Zombonies trying to cover your yard in ice for the evil bobsledders.
Some of my goals I feel confident in guessing about: I will keep wanting to eat, live indoors, have a car and computers, follow doctor recommendations, etc. Also, old people eventually have trouble doing stuff, so I should do all the harder stuff such as certain kinds of travel and house fixing up right away. Supposedly we get stupider or more forgetful, so I should set up a lot of things to run on automatic like investments and bill payments.
I also have an above-average chance of the following monsters coming at me due to genetic and behavior factors:
* hypothyroidism
* arthritis
* diabetes
* osteoporosis
* skin cancer
* nutritional deficiencies
* and of course the usual threats of other cancers, heart troubles, strokes, car wrecks
I am also looking into a back-up place to live if the place I'm living becomes no longer acceptable. My property taxes could get too high for me to be able to afford. My city council can get so corrupt that I can't stand to live here. The laws and cultural mores of my entire country can get so horrible that I no longer want to live in it. (Sadly, many other countries are even worse--you have to be careful. Plus I don't think it's easy to move to most other countries due to citizenship laws.)
Early strategies
There are many strategies that work, but something Robin and I agree on is that it's best (most fun) to build up your resource generators (sunflowers) before trying to build anything else. Once you have enough sunflowers, you can stop worrying about resources completely and just focus on the other stuff.
So how does that compare to what I've been doing with my finances in real life? Real life does not compare favorably:
* Bad - I never tried to earn much money until my college financial aid package description explained that I had to contribute to my own college costs by having jobs.
* Bad - I started my adult life with negative capacity (student loans) in return for higher earning ability, but then I rarely used this ability.
* Good - I took out $2500 less in loans than I could have by living super frugally my senior year.
* Bad - My career has involved jobs that have barely paid my expenses for many, many years. When I did start having extra resources, the surplus was small for many more years. When it started getting quite good, I quit working that job. Now I'm back to minimal surplus income.
* Good - I bought a house. It cost me significantly more than renting during the year I bought it and the year I refinanced it, but now that it's paid off, it's costing me less.
Surviving the Resource-Building Period
In Plants vs. Zombies, Robin and I differ on how to handle our building needs (to defend ourselves against incoming zombies) while we're building up our resources. As soon as I see a zombie coming, I stop building sunflowers and wait until I have enough to build my favorite affordable defense (either the pea shooter or the cabbage lobber or maybe the buttery corn). (Note: I'm not using the exact right names for some of the plants, but if you play, you can probably figure out what I'm talking about.)
Robin likes to build a cheap, disposable, one-time-use weapon (the potato mine) for the first few zombies. This wastes resources, but lets him get to full capacity more quickly.
In real life, I clearly went for the potato mines. I still have some of that particle board and even cardboard furniture. And I remember the time in my life when I made the switch from potato mines to pea shooters by deciding to only buy durable furniture. And cars. (Clothing and food are tougher.)
Nevertheless, soon I'll be collecting my pension, which is like suddenly having all my sunflowers in place.
Mid-game strategies
In Plants vs. Zombies, you start off with an occasional low-level zombie coming in to your yard, but as time goes on, larger hordes of more and more powerful zombies approach. So you need to build up more and more powerful defenses to protect your brain. I'll quit building sunflowers and make sure to get pea shooters on every row (which holds off the weaker zombies), then add things like spikeweed and frozen pea shooters (for the tougher zombies), and then with some defensive back-ups thrown in (such as walnuts, tall-nuts, or chompers).
And how about in real life?
In some ways we do have more need of resources as we go through life - more and bigger medical bills, snootier tastes, inflation. But having all your furniture, housing, and college degrees in place can also mean you don't need as many resources.
My spending has definitely increased over time. Things I remember adding to my college budget include:
* higher food quality (such as frozen pizza made with real cheese instead of fake)
* car expenses (I became a car owner)
* medical insurance (woo hoo--I can afford that)
* other insurance
* charitable contributions
* savings for future health expenses
* investments
What are like the tougher plants that damage everything coming your way? (frozen pea shooter, gatling gun, melon lobber)? Maybe housing, transportation, skills.
What are like the defensive plants (walnuts, tall-nuts)? Insurance, computer back-ups, ear plugs, exercise, sleep, nutrition, friends, spirituality.
What are like the specialty plants that work on specific needs (magnet shrooms, umbrella plants)? Medicines and medical tests, I guess. Warm clothing for people like me who feel chilled a lot.
And what are like the all-purpose last-ditch plants when things are going wrong (potato mines, squash, jalapenos, cherry bombs)? Ibuprofen, physical therapy, hip replacements, emergency funds, passports, wills.
End-game strategies
How much will I be able to plan ahead for future challenges? And how much will I be scrambling in panic as each new challenge appears?
Admittedly, in Plants vs. Zombies, you get to see all your future challenges at the beginning of the game. So there's no need for magnet shrooms if there are no metal-bearing zombies. And no need for umbrella plants if there are no bungee zombies. And there's generally no need for jalapenos if you won't be facing Zombonies trying to cover your yard in ice for the evil bobsledders.
Some of my goals I feel confident in guessing about: I will keep wanting to eat, live indoors, have a car and computers, follow doctor recommendations, etc. Also, old people eventually have trouble doing stuff, so I should do all the harder stuff such as certain kinds of travel and house fixing up right away. Supposedly we get stupider or more forgetful, so I should set up a lot of things to run on automatic like investments and bill payments.
I also have an above-average chance of the following monsters coming at me due to genetic and behavior factors:
* hypothyroidism
* arthritis
* diabetes
* osteoporosis
* skin cancer
* nutritional deficiencies
* and of course the usual threats of other cancers, heart troubles, strokes, car wrecks
I am also looking into a back-up place to live if the place I'm living becomes no longer acceptable. My property taxes could get too high for me to be able to afford. My city council can get so corrupt that I can't stand to live here. The laws and cultural mores of my entire country can get so horrible that I no longer want to live in it. (Sadly, many other countries are even worse--you have to be careful. Plus I don't think it's easy to move to most other countries due to citizenship laws.)