I’m getting over some sort of cold as I type, so the timeliness of this article is … timely.

Looks like I won’t be picking up that truckload of cough syrup after all. Thanks to BloggingBaby for letting us know that over-the-counter cough syrup is a sham. I probably should’ve figured this out on my own … and so should all of you! For shame!

Okay, so we had no real way of knowing, though you have to wonder what sort of studies the cough syrup makers conducted that led them to believe their products worked. Does this mean we’ll see a bunch of false advertising lawsuits filed against the manufacturer of Robitussin? Probably (Nick’s Rule of Starting a Business #1: If you build it, they will sue you.), but our over-medicated society won’t let these remedies disappear from drugstore shelves. I doubt even a big label reading “WARNING: THIS DOES NOT WORK” attached to cough syrup would discourage people from buying it.

Now if you’re open to alternative medicines, I highly recommend chocolate to help relieve coughs, increase sexual appetite, and spark world peace.

While I’ve got the old financial crystal ball out, I figured it would be fun to envision some of the new business opportunities that will be awaiting us in 40 or 50 years. Easier said than blogged since I can’t imagine anyone 50 years ago thought we’d be using a network of millions of magical boxes to purchase ferret hammocks and robotic vacuum cleaners. At the current pace of technological advancements, in half a century we may be living on the moon and commuting to work via demolecularizing teleportation. Well, maybe things aren’t moving that fast, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the economic landscape will be drastically different by 2050. Just what sort of businesses will be setting up shop on your street corner by the mid-21st century? I’ve used my magic, alcohol-activated powers of divination to peer into our future, so make sure to save a few hundred million dollars (inflation, duh!) to invest in these light-speed ventures.

It’s 2050! Are these industries in your portfolio?

• Robot repair. The present-day equivalent of this industry-to-be is computer repair, and plenty of peope make an absolute killing at helping the technologically uneducated install anti-virus protection and wireless home networks. Still, for the most part, computer repair is relatively inexpensive when compared to, say, space station repair. By 2050, there will likely be a robot in most middle-class homes to aid in everyday household tasks like cooking, cleaning, and perhaps even contract killing. But once that robot burns the pot roast, forgets to dust before vacuuming, or assassinates the wrong foreign diplomat, we’ll be needing robot repairmen by the starship-load. Now consider the complexity of a robot: hardware more advanced than that found on a nuclear submarine, algorithms more complicated than this one, and batteries you can’t just replace with a quick trip to the drugstore. And since complicated household robots could cost as much as a car, throwing one away and buying another whenever it breaks down might not be an option. Imagine today’s world with only 1% of its current automobile repair specialist population; that’s the crisis awaiting tomorrow’s robot-run world. Become a certified robot fixer-upper (better yet, start a training school with multi-million dollar tuition) and you will be making more than an eight-armed lawyer … in fifty years or so.
• LoooOOOooong-distance telecommunications. Forget 35 cents a minute for a call from Pittsburgh to Pakistan; your phone bill in 2050 may include two-hour subspace transmissions with loved ones on the Moon or Mars. The fact that my cell phone won’t get a signal in the bathroom makes me wonder if we’ll have a cheap way of providing common folks like you and me with instantaneous, interstellar communication lines. While I’d love to see us run a few million miles of Cat-5 cable from Earth to Earth: The Sequel, it’ll probably be less expensive to develop and implement something a little more advanced. Come on, Verizon, open our hailing frequencies already!
• Universal translation. No, I’m not talking about human-to-Klingon translations. By mid-century, the concept of “national languages” may be defunct as people of different cultural origins spread all over the planet. Nowhere else will this be more true than the United States where the present minority is expected to become the majority. I doubt the average person will want to learn multiple languages, but being able to understand them may prove vital to large international businesses or small, culturally-diverse neighborhoods. Research and development of tools to aid us in understanding those around us will be critical to all facets of life in the future.
• Alternative fuel. Forget oil, coal, or electricity. There might not be enough of any of these by 2050 to help power man’s lofty endeavors while still keeping the lights on in your garage. You probably can’t go to the store or service station to pick up a gallon of the fuels we’ll most likely be using in the future: fusion, hydrogen, solar power, and even everyone’s favorite fictional-but-not energy form: antimatter. Whatever its form, the power of the future will need specialists to help harvest it, contain it, and dispense it. The real question: do you trust your local gas station attendant to pump your car full of a fuel that could vaporize the entire planet in seconds?
• Nanotechnology. While most of the world will be thinking big, some scientists are working as we speak to make sure we’ll all soon have little machines floating around our bodies keeping our organs working optimally. You can actually find plenty of nanotechnology investment opportunities now, though most of them are research-oriented. In fifty years, getting your yearly shot of microbots will be as commonplace as getting a flu shot is today.
• Leisure, mid-21st-century style. Hopefully the year 2050 will bring entertainment options more exciting than drinking moon beer from a rocket keg. Whether it’s honeymooning on the International Space Station, spending the day at the local holographic recreational center, or taking the kids to Epcot Center (which will be converted to an antique museum), people will need a place to unwind after a grueling 140-hour work week. Having fun five decades from now may be more expensive, and operating those high-tech entertainment venues may not be within the skill range of any high school drop-out satisfied with making minimum wage.
• Super-duper internet. I’m hoping that will be the official name for it, but whatever you call it, our world will be so full of information in fifty years that you’ll be able to feel it in the air. Who knows what form the information super-highway of the future may take? Will we have vast fields of servers as big as Rhode Island? Or will data just exist in a virtual aether all around us? I’m sure if you can come up with the answer to these questions (before a certain other company does), you may very well own the world of the future … or at least all of its information.

Of course, these are just my guesses. Sorry, but I was just kidding about my alcohol-induced fortune-telling abilities. Drinking will not improve your economic forecasting skills, so please keep your imbibing to a minimum … at least until they come out with a robotic liver.

Even at the age of 23, I’ve already seen my fair share of big companies go bankrupt, merge with other companies, or otherwise disappear from the landscape of my life. When I was 14, the F.W. Woolworth store at the local shopping mall closed. I missed it so much. Much of my childhood toy and videogame collection came from its five-and-dimey goodness, and its disappearance marked the beginning of a mass exodus of all the best stores in the mall.

It was an even darker day when Montgomery Ward went belly up. Half my childhood clothes and my Nintendo Entertainment System came from there. And who could forget Monkey Ward’s Electric Avenue??? It was an avenue … of electric stuff! There’s a Wal-Mart in its former location.

Chuck Saletta over at The Motley Fool wrote an article discussing the inevitable mortality of most businesses along with some he predicts won’t be around a decade from today. His two predictions for companies that may soon buy the farm: the behind-the-times Cincinnati Bell and Blockbuster Video. While both companies are struggling to keep up with advancements in their industries, Blockbuster is losing major ground in the DVD rental world to Netflix, and Cincinnati Bell seems to have just discovered the touch-tone telephone.

Around here, Bell Atlantic evaporated into Verizon a while ago, so there’s no equivalent company in my state. Blockbuster, on the other hand, has a store next to every other Starbucks, so I can definitely see a lot of them closing up shop in the next few years (gotta put more Starbucks somewhere, ya know?). I’ve got a few predictions of my own for companies that won’t be joining us in the year 2016. Just remember, these are wild speculations; please don’t go dumping your stock in them or running up to their employees just to laugh and point at them.

Are these companies heading for that great stock ticker in the sky?

• Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (NYSE: KKD) You know a company is in trouble when its own franchisees start to sue it. Sure, it’s coming out of a major restructuring, and it’s made some smart decisions by closing a bunch of those extra stores from the big “Doughnut Boom” a few years ago. And yes, I’m betting against the company that currently employs my very own wife. But if people’s changing diets and unending lawsuits don’t deflate these doughnuts, then the federal investigations just might.
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) Who knows; ten years from now, maybe most companies will be founded by, named after, and operated by convicted felons. Prisons will all be equipped with executive conference rooms from which inmates can operate their businesses. Maybe orange jumpsuits will replace shirts and ties as the standard office outfit. While it seems most people have “forgiven” Martha Stewart for her horrible crimes against humanity, Wall Street is still seeing red. But wait, they’ve got a plan to restore the company to its former glory! Apparently Martha Stewart Omnimedia will be riding the scrapbooking wave to financial prosperity. I wish I could make $962,000 a year to come up with ideas like that.
• Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) Yeah, this one’s a stretch, and it could very well outlive all of us. I mean, Best Buy’s not in any financial trouble or anything, and they’re coming off a strong holiday sales season. So what earned Best Buy a spot on my death watch? Quite simply, they’re about as greedy and evil as a company can get. Some of you may recall Best Buy’s revelation from 2004 that some of its customers are devils who only show up in store for loss leader and rebate-bearing items. Most recently, Best Buy was forced into apologizing for bundling many of its already expensive Xbox 360s with even more expensive extras. Some may call this a smart business tactic, but the day will come when nobody has been untouched by Best Buy’s excessive avarice. So yes, I hereby predict the demise of Best Buy solely based on the fact that it’s operated by meanie poopie heads.
• Kmart, and probably Sears (NYSE: SHLD), too. What’s that? No fair picking on companies that just emerged from bankruptcy? My apologies, but Kmart’s troubles seem to be far from over. As Wal-Mart’s steamrolling across America continues with no end in sight, Kmart has decided that the key to its future success is to emulate its biggest competitor as closely as possible. Maybe this strategy will buy Kmart a few years, but in a fight between Wal-Mart and Kmart (heck, between Wal-Mart and anything), the odds just don’t look good for the Big K. As for Sears (which exists under the same holding company as Kmart following last year’s acquisition), I just can’t help but get the Montgomery Ward vibe every time I set foot in one of its stores.
• Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) I sure hope nothing happens to these guys because then I’ll have a bunch of broken links in this article! And I’m sure Yahoo! won’t just curl up and die as long as the internet is still around. Rather, I think Yahoo! will end the second decade of the 21st century with something like “Time Warner” or “Microsoft” prefixed to its name. It’s a strong company, no doubt, but all the exclamation points in the world won’t help Yahoo! survive alone in the battle with Google. Someone with a few billion dollars to spare will snatch this one up and then the real fight for the internet will begin.
• kweee.blogspot.com (NYSE: WTF?) Why is such an awesome business on this list? While I could easily stand on my own for a good five hundred years, I predict that Google will buy me out for one BILLION dollars by the end of the year. If not, then maybe Martha Stewart will slip me ten bucks to take her company off this list.

I asked Tegan what company she thinks won’t be around in a decade. She said Wendy’s because it doesn’t have Dave Thomas to do its commercials anymore. Hey, her guess is as good as any of ours!

The United States is a great place to live. We’ve got foot-long hot dogs, demolition derbies, twenty-lane interstate highways, and more ways to gyp the government out of income taxes than I could ever write about. While I’m still young and haven’t yet had the chance to experience the full range of tax credits, deductions, and incentives, there’s one option currently available to me that’s looking more and more appealing every day: the Flexible Spending Account (FSA).

For those people reading that are fresh out of the womb and don’t know what an FSA is, here is a simple explanation. FSA is a magical land where you can send some of your before-tax paycheck dollars. Once in the magical land of FSA, that untaxed money can then be withdrawn to cover certain expenses. Sounds fantastic, right? Time to start shoveling every penny into FSA Land, right? Well, the government’s not that dumb; there are some limitations that prevent you from using that money to buy, say, 100 Ferraris with untaxed income. For starters, FSA money can only be spent on two main categories of expenses: medical and dependent care. Eligible medical expenses include things you might expect–doctor bills, copays, prescriptions, and many other common health care expenses that might not be covered by your insurance–along with a bunch of items that might not immediately occur to you are qualified medical expenses–over-the-counter drugs, medical hypnosis, and weight loss programs to name a few. Eligible dependent care expenses are a bit harder to list, but they generally cover assorted costs associated with caring for a child younger than 13 or an elderly relative or disabled child of any age. Whereas health care spending accounts have a pretty well-defined list of qualifying expenses, dependent care FSAs seem to take more of a “not these items” approach.

The other big gotcha of Flexible Spending Accounts is their “use it or lose it” clause. Any money you put into FSA Land during a particular year must be used before the end of that year or else it disappears into another magical land: The Land of Ha Ha, Your Money’s Gone and You Ain’t Gettin’ It Back. Starting in 2006, employers now have the option of extending the deadline to use FSA funds to the middle of March the following year.

Deciding whether or not to use an FSA and how much of your paycheck to set aside can either be really simple or somewhat difficult. If you know you’re going to spend $5,000 a year on, say, your child’s day care, just max out your dependent care spending account since the IRS says $5,000 is the maximum anyone can put into a dependent care FSA per year. Of course, if you don’t have kids or other qualifying dependents, it’s an easy choice to leave the dependent care FSA empty. Except for unexpected situations that I hope no one ever experiences, dependent care expenses are easy enough to estimate a year in advance, so some careful planning and smart calculations should help everyone make the most of this flavor of FSA without ending up wasting those wonderful pre-tax dollars.

Medical FSAs, in my opinion, are much harder to use “perfectly.” Unless you’re going to use the maximum allowable annual benefit (which is set by individual employers, not the IRS, though many companies I’ve seen stick with the $5,000 value), you’re either going to lose the leftover money in your FSA at the end of the year or you’ll have more expenses than you have pre-tax dollars set aside to cover. The second outcome seems more difficult to avoid since planning for big, uninsured medical expenses from year to year is much harder than anticipating dependent care expenses. Avoiding wasted FSA dollars can also be tricky, and it’s the main reason I haven’t put a dime into one since I started working. Apparently three percent of FSA dollars are wasted each year, but your employer thanks you since they can use that money to cover the costs of operating FSAs. Since my wife and I are generally healthy and have insurance, our FSA-eligible medical expenses per year come down to a couple of doctor copays and maybe some Tylenol and cough syrup. In a good year, we’ll spend under $100 on eligible medical costs, and my employer won’t let us put any less than $100 in an FSA annually. Now if you consider the tax savings on $100, we’d actually break even as long as we spent at least $75 of that money.

I think I’ll be able to talk myself into going with a health care spending account either this year or next, even if it’s just at the minimum amount. If you’re in a similar situation, or you already have an FSA and need to find ways to spend your FSA balance before year end (or March 15th of the following year if your employer allows), consider the items below on which you can spend those precious before-tax funds.

Some Items Covered By Medical Flexible Spending Accounts

• Over-the-counter drugs. Thank you, IRS, for deciding back in 2003 that allergy medicine, pain relievers, antacids, and a host of other medical goods available without a prescription are eligible for FSA spending. If your FSA year is coming to a close, check the dates on everything in your medicine cabinet and make a trip to the drug store to replace the expired ones. Also, anti-fungal creams make great Christmas gifts for the entire family, so stock up! Unfortunately. there’s one item that’s “missing” from the list of covered medications: vitamins. That said…
• Vitamins … if your doctor says so. We’ve been told for years that a multi-vitamin as part of a balanced diet is good for us, and so millions of us take those vitamins without so much as a suggestion from a physician to do so. Instead, talk about vitamins with your doctor and convince him to give you a letter of medical necessity that will make those vitamins eligible for FSA coverage.
• Baby factories. If you’re trying to crank out the kids and you find that you might need a little help from modern medicine, these expenses can be covered by your FSA. All the bases from extraction to injection are eligible: embryo and sperm storage, in-vitro fertilization, and even sperm washing! (I don’t think I want to know what that last one is.) Of course, if you’ve got all the children you want, or you’re happy keeping the kid count at zero, there’s also…
• Condoms. While being a good Catholic boy keeps these out of my medicine cabinet, condoms and various other birth control implements are just screaming for your FSA dollars. Heck, I know a few people who could hit their employer’s FSA maximum every year with just this category! You can even get more permanent methods of birth control performed with FSA money.
• Contact lenses and eyeglasses. Tired of running into walls and the wrong bathroom at work? It might be time for a new pair of prescription glasses or some contact lenses. They’re fully eligible, and they can even be used to start fires if you’re ever stranded on a desert island. Me, I’d like to be stranded on a dessert island, so I might need the next item when I make it back to civilization…
• Weight loss programs. If your doctor tells you it’s time to lose that extra 600 pounds, you may be eligible to put FSA money toward the various costs associated with doing so.
• Counseling. Depressed? Insane? Underperforming in the bedroom? Many types of licensed counselors are FSA-eligible and waiting to talk to you about your childhood or your obsession with sniffing women’s shoes.
• Dancing lessons. Some doctors think dancing will help you recover from injuries faster, and they’ll sometimes even prescribe it! If they do, you’re in luck because you can use your FSA to pay for the lessons. Just please, don’t break a leg on purpose so you can learn to tango.
• Flu shots. The best tax-free dollars you’ll ever spend on your health.
• Laser eye surgery. I really wish this meant that you could get attachments to make lasers shoot out of your eyes, but being able to see better is nice, too. This can be pretty pricey and many insurance companies won’t foot the bill for it. Using your pre-tax FSA dollars is like a 10-30% discount for expensive elective procedures like this one.
• Transferring medical records. Sometimes you’ll have to pay a small fee to have your old doctor send medical records to your new one. It’s probably just a few bucks, but why not use your FSA dollars instead of the ones in your wallet?
• Orthodontia. If you’ve got four kids with crooked teeth and a big chunk of your weekly paycheck is going to paying for their braces or other orthodontia, use FSA dollars that might be forfeited at the end of the year on any such items you may have on an installment payment plan. Or just use FSA cash to pay for them in full at the time of purchase.
• Alcohol treatment. Give the gift that keeps on giving: send your drunken spouse to a rehab clinic, and pay for it with his or her FSA dollars.
• Swimming pool/spa. Remember how vitamins are eligible if your doctor gives you a note? So are swimming pools and spas! If you can convince your doctor (or your doctor convinces you) that a swimming pool or spa would be of benefit to your health, your FSA dollars can be used to pay for its installation and maintenance. I don’t think there’s a person alive who wouldn’t experience some health benefits from a swimming pool… well, maybe people with hydrophobia. Unfortunately, any “The government helped me pay for this pool” signs will have to come out of your own after-tax pocket.

There are many other eligible costs not on this list. And before you start calling your local ballroom dancing school or spa supplier, please talk to your doctor and human resources department to make sure that you will receive reimbursement for these expenses.

One bonus tip: if your annual FSA is funded by payroll deductions over the course of the year, you can “borrow” against money you have not yet made using your FSA. Say you put $100 a week into your FSA. Untouched, your FSA will have about $5,200 in it by the end of December. But then your doctor says, “Sorry, Bob, but you medically need that Olympic-sized swimming pool right now,” and it’s only April! You can take out all of the $5,200 you pledged to put into you FSA at any time during the year, even if you haven’t had the full amount deducted from your paychecks yet.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Bankrate.com, USA TODAY

They say that the best things in life are free, right? I don’t know about you, but I can think of some really great things that cost a helluva lot of money. Once ocean cruises, fast cars, and big houses cost zero dollars, then maybe we’ll believe what “they” have to say. (Or maybe they were talking in a metaphorical sense about love, family, friendship, and the feeling of happiness within oneself. If so, awww.)

There seems to be a general understanding in today’s society that having fun goes hand in hand with spending money. Trip to the ballpark? That’s fifty bucks a person right there. A movie and popcorn? Eight hundred dollars! Not ending this with a corny MasterCard reference? Priceless. Er, wait…

Just because it can cost a hundred bucks or more for four hours of entertainment doesn’t mean it has to. My wife and I have found plenty of ways to have fun for little or no money. Now before you go getting your head in the gutter over that last statement, here are a few things we enjoy doing that don’t cost much and can even be enjoyed with friends…

Have fun for free or cheap

• Board games do not necessarily mean “bored” games. You can find all of the classics–Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, and countless others–for cheap in most toy stores and online. If you’re worried about the games getting old quickly, or if you’ve already exhausted your massive game closet, try some of the new variations on older games like Triopoly and Super Scrabble or try any of the dozens of excellent games geared toward gatherings of friends. Some games can be a little pricey, but they’re something you can hang on to and play again and again for years to come, so the cost quickly amortizes.
• Good movies at public libraries. They might not have the mind-boggling selection of your local Blockbuster, but your nearby public library may carry new release videos for a small fee or possibly even free. Many libraries also lend the latest music CDs. While you’re there, you can even pick up some books to read. Remember books? Those things that we used for information before the internet? They’re not just for kindling!
• Look for free things to do in your town. Chances are your taxes are paying for them already, so get out there and enjoy them! Just down the road from here in Washington, D.C., there are tons of free places to visit.
• Go to the mall, but leave your wallet at home. Tegan and I love doing this since there are several large malls in the area. The bad thing about shopping malls is that they’re concentrated money-suckers. It can be extremely difficult for someone (like, say, a husband who loves seeing his wife wear cute outfits) to keep a closed wallet when there are so many shiny things leaping out at you saying “Buy me! I’ll make your body look gorgeous or your room look psychedelic.” If you make the trip without the cash or credit cards in your wallet, you can feel free to try on adorable clothes (bring a camera and take shots of you and your friends in thousand-dollar outfits!), picture that seven-foot flamingo statue in your living room, or gawk at a thirty-carat diamond necklace without having to worry about busting your bank account.
• A walk in the park or any of the other million things you can do with a wide-open space. Grab a ball, frisbee, or gigantic tub of water balloons and spend the day with friends at a park. Chase the kids off the playground and relive your childhood monkey bar and sand castle memories. Bring a picnic basket full of food you put together yourself and avoid the high prices of eating out. Or take your special someone on a private walk and … get to know each other better. Just be sure you’re really alone if things get exciting. Yes, I’m talking to you, crazy couple from that park a decade ago who didn’t realize I was fifty feet away hiding in the jungle gym.
• Volunteer your time. While this one is probably obvious, there are many people out there who are willing to volunteer their time, but they associate volunteering with work and no fun, or they don’t really know how to go about volunteering in the first place. Sure, if you volunteer for something that you have no interest in, it can be tedious and scare you away from volunteering in the future. I highly recommend the free online volunteer opportunity matching service VolunteerMatch. You can locate a variety of service opportunities in your area, and you can even select from different categories that will help you find a volunteer position you’ll actually enjoy. Volunteering is a great thing and helps make this country a wonderful place, but why shouldn’t volunteers actually like what they’re giving their time to do?
• Read this blog! Okay, so maybe the best thing in life is free since it doesn’t cost you anything to partake of my wisdom and wit. How lucky you are!

These are just a few of the ways you can keep the entertainment in your life while omitting the wallet-sucking action. If you still don’t believe me that spending and having fun can be mutually exclusive, just lock your pocket book in a safe for a few days and try out some of the items on this list. Better yet, send your money to me and I’ll hold on to it for you!