Business
AgLife
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Thursday, August 25, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
LIZ
WESTON
ASK LIZ
Just starting
out? Learn from
our mistakes
W
e’ve all seen commencement
speakers give advice to gradu-
ates as they’re about to enter the
workforce. In much the same way, financial
experts are in the unique position to impart
money advice to the younger generation. I
asked personal finance authors, columnists
and podcast hosts who have figured out a
thing or two about money to share the nug-
gets of wisdom they wish they could tell
their younger selves. Among their advice?
Invest in the stock market early, save as
much as you can, steer clear of credit card
debt and don’t worry so much about having
it all figured out.
Those of us who write and talk about
money for a living tend to have our finan-
cial acts together. But that wasn’t always
the case. I invited some personal finance
experts to share what they wish they could
have told their younger selves about money.
Invest early, even if it’s scary
If the stock market scares you, nation-
ally syndicated Washington Post colum-
nist Michelle Singletary can relate. Single-
tary says she avoided investing for many
years because in her first job out of college,
an older co-worker — one who was close
to retirement age — warned her that stocks
were too risky.
Singletary later realized that someone
in their 20s has decades to ride out stock
market swings, and that she could have
afforded to take much more risk with her
investments.
“The lesson I learned was to look at my
own individual situation and invest based
on my timeline and goals,” Singletary says.
Student loan debt can pay off
Darian Woods, a reporter and producer
for “The Indicator from Planet Money”
podcast, says he can no longer remember
exactly how much he borrowed to get a
master’s in public policy from the Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley — just that his
balance was “in the tens of thousands of
dollars” by the time he graduated.
The debt felt enormous. Woods wishes
he could reassure his anxious younger self
that the loans were a solid investment in
his future. Woods, a New Zealand native,
landed a job as an analyst for his country’s
treasury department and was able to pay off
the loans in a year.
“That debt wasn’t as much of an alba-
tross as I’d feared,” Woods says.
Saving, spending, earning — they’re
all important
Paco de Leon, author of the book
“Finance for the People: Getting a Grip
On Your Finances,” has two bits of advice
for her younger self. The first is to save,
no matter what. Saving can feel futile on a
small income, but the amount you save is far
less important than the habit of saving that
you’ll develop, she says.
The second piece of advice: Deal with
your pain.
De Leon graduated with a degree in
finance and a minor in economics. But a
head full of knowledge about money con-
cepts was no match for what de Leon calls
“a deep-rooted scarcity mindset” and a pro-
found sense of inferiority. De Leon says
she didn’t earn enough for years because
she wasn’t convinced of her own worth and
bought expensive things she couldn’t afford,
hoping to get validation from others. She
wishes her younger self had spent time in
self-reflection and therapy to work through
her psychological issues.
“Do the work to heal your pain, so you
aren’t creating more unnecessary problems
for yourself,” de Leon says.
Don’t make work your life
Tess Vigeland is host and senior producer
of The Wall Street Journal’s “As We Work”
podcast. She, too, has both practical and
philosophical advice for her younger self.
The practical: Never, ever carry a credit
card balance if you can help it.
“I got myself in deep credit debt
throughout my early and mid-20s, because
I lived life like I had my parents’ bank
account, when in fact I had a tiny fraction of
that,” Vigeland says.
The philosophical: Develop interests out-
side of your job.
Vigeland loved her work in public radio
— until she didn’t. In 2012, she abruptly
quit her job as host of American Public
Media’s “Marketplace Money,” a personal
finance show, with no clue about what she
wanted to do next.
See, Weston/Page B3
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Erl McLaughlin recently expanded his Sunrise Iron Museum, west of Enterprise, by 72 feet so it’s now 40 feet by 300 feet. Inside, he has more than
100 years worth of tractors and other farm implements, many of which he’s restored over the past 40 years while not farming. He reopened the
expanded museum Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022.
‘It’s gotta be a passion’
Wallowa County’s
Erl McLaughlin has
35 tractors in newly
expanded warehouse
By ANN BLOOM
For the Wallowa County Chieftain
E
NTERPRISE —
For most people
having a collection
of something is a hobby. For
Erl McLaughlin it’s a passion.
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Erl McLaughlin shows a luggage cart he obtained in Lewiston, Idaho, that served at the Camas
Prairie Railroad south of Lewiston. It’s one of many of the antique vehicles he has restored in his
Sunrise Iron Museum west of Enterprise.
McLaughlin collects and
restores antique tractors.
“It’s gotta be a passion,” he said. He
has 35 tractors in his newly expanded
warehouse on Sunrise Road. He’s been
collecting and restoring tractors since
1983. All the tractors are nonmotor-
ized, with a few dating back to the
Civil War.
Each tractor has a story.
“There’s a million stories at Sun-
rise Iron,” he said. “Most all my trac-
tors run, and I’ve painted them and put
decals on them with colors and fonts
so they look finished. It’s dirty, hard,
expensive work to make them respect-
able and put them on display — (they)
need TLC.”
He said he got into restoring tractors
because the winters are long and cold
in Wallowa County. He has 600 acres
of cropland, all irrigated, but since he
doesn’t run cattle and doesn’t spend
time feeding them in the winter he
needed something to do in the winters.
Sunrise Iron has also expanded
to include antique sewing machines,
washing machines, an assortment of
antique vacuum cleaners, butter churns,
lithographs depicting turn-of-the-cen-
tury domestic activities and agricul-
tural motifs.
McLaughlin held an open house
earlier this month, featuring an addi-
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Erl McLaughlin shows a couple items Friday, Aug. 5, 2022, at his recently expanded Sunrise
Iron Museum, west of Enterprise. At left is a sleigh and at right is a buggy. He said both are on
permanent loan from the Wallowa County Museum because that museum has run out of room.
He’s been collecting and restoring tractors and other antiques since 1983.
tion of 72 feet, which was barely fin-
ished in time for the open house. The
addition enabled him to show off trac-
tors which had been in storage. The
warehouse also features a spiral stair-
case which provides a bird’s-eye view
of everything.
“I’m indebted to my good friend Al,
for letting me store stuff in a building
east of Joseph, on a no-cost basis,” for
the last 20 years, he said.
The building is now 40 feet by 300
See, Tractors/Page B3
Stepping up to the plate
Secondhand store in
Wallowa expands
hours after storm
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — Joining
with other businesses and indi-
viduals to step up and help in
the current emergency in Wal-
lowa, the Wallowa Commu-
nity Resale Store is expanding
its hours with the assistance of
volunteers.
“We’re only able to do that
because of the generosity of
the community in donating
their stuff,” owner Deborrah
Reth said.
The Resale Store, which
sells a wide variety of sec-
ondhand clothing, household
goods, books and other items,
may have just what Wallowa
residents need after the storm
that pummeled the town with
hail and wind Aug. 11. The hail
broke windows on nearly every
west-facing side of Wallowa’s
buildings, sending shards of
glass inside and across beds
See, Resale/Page B3
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Deborrah Reth, right, talks over what is needed at the Community Resale
Store on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022, with potential donor Monica Guillory, of
Wallowa. The store has expanded its hours with the help of numerous
volunteers to help meet the needs of Wallowans in the wake of the Aug. 11
wind and hailstorm.