Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for June, 2010

Watching For The Perfect Financial Wave

June 30th, 2010

Mr. Obama caught the Presidential wave

When I was in my tweens, I use to go to Myrtle Beach practically every year with my parents. Back then, people didn’t take a friend on vacation too, so I was down there with nobody else to hang with.

So what does an active 11 or 12 year old boy do to entertain himself while on vacation without his friends? BODYSURFING

Body Surfing is basically what it sounds like… you don’t have a surfboard and your parents won’t rent one (I’m not bitter, lol), so you swim out to where the waves start to turn and get your body in from of it and ride it like you would do if you did have a surfboard (I’m still not bitter)!!! But I digress (I always wanted to write that)…

So what does this have to do with personal finance?

Basically, I learned if you constantly wait for the perfect wave, mostly you wait there wasting time and light. Of course, if you grab just any wave, the ride would be lame and not enjoyable… So eventually you learn to distinguish which wave is fun and which one is a waste of time.

IMO, life is much like choosing your wave, if you wait to long in making choices, you miss a lot of good opportunities. But if you settle for just anything, you won’t really know how much fun you can have, and at the end you are unfulfilled.

It’s all about balance, and I can tell that I’m out of balance because I keep thinking about going on vacation and doing the things that we do down there!

-MR

8 comments »

Posted in Vacation

Tags: financial surfing

Comfy Time Out On The Deck

June 29th, 2010

Not my deck but close enough

Yesterday after work, I decided to go out on the deck to chill out. So, I unplugged the laptop and away I went!

It rained earlier that day, washing away the hot muggy humidity that was lingering in the air making it hard to breathe! These last few days have been more like a sauna, keeping me indoors instead of outside enjoying in the sun!

Now, since the humidity is gone, I decided to go out and soak up the perfect environment. The song birds are going crazy this evening, creating their frantic songs! The clouds are slowly floating by, looking more like some grey ghost floats from a Macy’s parade than the soft billowy white clouds I’d rather see…

My dog, while initially sniffing at the air, had settled down in her typical laying down position, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Occasionally, she’ll perk up at the sound of kids playing off in the distant. Perhaps she thinks they are her kids (since my son and daughter are sleeping over at the grandparents).

I decide to go into the fridge and grab the relaxing cool beverage in the usual brown bottle It’s a rare time alone, so I decide to blog about the experience, just to give a sense of what my life is like when I’m at my most relaxed time, batteries recharging so to speak. And to read about some day, just so I remember how great it is here, right now, when everything is quiet and peaceful.

I think how lucky I am to live in a clean, green world… and that minus the occasional distant kids playing, is very quiet and relaxing.

As I turn slightly to my right, I see two rabbits jumping lazily in the neighbor’s yard. I live in a 10 year old allotment, so many of the houses are newer and closer than where I grew up. Seeing the rabbits aren’t that common, although one lived beside our chimney in the flowers a few years ago…

In many ways, with the houses equally spaced, it kind of reminds me of a row of plants in a garden, although the trees have grown large enough now to break that feeling up a bit.

In this type of setting, I do my best thinking and creating!

I don’t get many days like this, but it’s part of living a frugal life, stopping to listen to the song birds and smell the freshness in the air after the down pour of a humidity freeing rain from earlier in the day…

Life is good, and the evening is beautiful! Soon the clouds will turn that reddish pink color as the sun starts to set.

If you made it this far, thanks for listen to me ramble! Some days like today are worth writing about alone!

Have you stopped and enjoy any days recently, especially when it’s perfect outside? I think it’s good medicine for a stressful life!

-MR

9 comments »

Posted in Environment

Tags: deck sitting perfect day perfect setting relaxing relaxing deck thinking time

Frugal Tricks, Making Broken Things Work

June 28th, 2010

When things break for me, I try to find a solution to make them work a little longer than typical.

I’ve blogged about fixing my lawnmower before, but what about other things in my house? Yes, I’ve done the same with many other things in my house!

Here are some of the techniques I’ve used to get a bit more life out of things:

Numerous flashlights: Usually the problems with these are the spring is cheap and needs bent so it makes contact with the battery. With a few flashlights, I had to take an eraser and rub the contacts for a better connection.

My AMD Desktop: A few years ago, my primary workstation at home was an AMD desktop. Unfortunately, the fan on the CPU wore out and the workstation would then go black after a half an hour. Luckily, I was able to figure out the problem, once I took it apart and tried to start it a few times.

Since I didn’t have a CPU fan on me, I unplugged the old CPU fan, and found a small house fan. I opened the case and aimed the house fan at the CPU, and surprise it worked! A few weeks later, I bought a CPU for a few bucks and it’s been great ever since. Surprisingly, the CPU wasn’t damaged…

Laptop Fan Problem: My daughter’s laptop wouldn’t work because of a fan error. Since she is only 6, I didn’t want to spend the money to get a new one, so instead I figured out a work around. What I do is blow at the fan when it boots up and everything is fine after that. It’s not that much of an inconvenience, especially considering it’s an older laptop and now worth the money to get a new fan.

TV: Our main family room TV has been on the fritz for the last year. The problem is sometimes it just goes black (after the screen wiggles for a little first). Other than those rare occasions, the TV works excellently! At first when it started breaking, I would switch the channel a few times and the screen refresh seemed to make a difference.

Sometimes the kids would leave the TV on and go play. When they would come back, the TV would be black. I then would have to turn the TV off for a while and try it again, that typically would it. Once it was so bad, I had to remove the AV cables from the VCR on the back of the TV and that did the trick (I put them right back on…).

Ottoman: This recently broke with a lethal drop knee provided by my son. Instead of just throwing it away, I took off the protective sheet from underneath it and determined that a support wooden block was broken! So I’m planning on fixing this myself saving a hundred or so dollars.

These are just a few things that I’ve been able to fix for free or with minimal cost to me. With electronics, it’s worth it to me to try and get them last as long as possible, because electronics get cheaper and better all the time. So the idea is make what I have last then buy something better for less later.

I’ve also had to fix other things like the washer and dryer, but I’ve already blogged about them.

Do you have any pearls of wisdom (or tricks) with respect to extending the life of things you have?

-MR

18 comments »

Posted in Frugality

Tags: broken things fixing things frugal repairs

Money Weekly Cache 2010, June 27 Cedar Point

June 27th, 2010

Weekly Thoughts:

You may be saying “what is Cedar Point“…? It’s the biggest Amusement Park for the N.E. middle states! While it’s not “Disney World” in either themes or shows, the park is still a great thrills amusement park for teenagers and adults. The have some great attractions like “Top Thrill Dragster“, which my wife and son loved. My wife said it was very exciting and she would love to go on it again someday.

It has really changed a lot from when I was a kid, but it’s still fun. My son really blossomed this year, trying the big boy and girl roller coasters. Unfortunately, my daughter didn’t have such a great time at first. The Park has bumped a lot of the rides up to have a 48 inch height requirement. This sucks, it wasn’t always that way! I remember when we first went rides like the “Wild Cat” and the Swing ride let kids that were less than 48 inches ride them.

But this isn’t the case anymore… very disappointing for my daughter (she’s only 45 inches tall)!!! After a lot of searching I found a roller coaster that she could ride called “Woodstock Express“. the roller coaster was perfect for her! It was still exciting but not too long or scary! It’s much better then the Gemini Jr (very lame for a 6 year old). So if you have a child shorter that 48 inches that’s crying that she/he want to go on a roller coaster… this is the answer! She went at least 4 times (and surprisingly, no line for this ride).

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

EveryDayTipsAndThoughts: “Thoughts For Thursday: When was the Last Time…” – For me this is a great reminder to make the most of my time with my kids while they are kids and impressionable. I love my kids and the more that I’m with them and occasionally do the thinks they want to do, the stronger our bond will be!

BudgetingInTheFunStuff: “Going Completely Green. Is it for You?” – A “going green” measuring stick to check how green you really are. In my case, I determined that I’m more of a lime green color versus the dark green that I imagined I was…

FreeMoneyFinance: “A Good Money Saving Tip or Unethical Way to Save Money” - Some people believe they are clever when the rip off other people… What do you think?

FrugalDad: “The Things Money Can’t Buy, and a Few Things It Can” and “8 Critical Steps Every Family Should Be Taking to Prepare for the Next Financial Crisis“ – sounds analysis, both posts are great reads.

GetRichSlowly: “Living on (a Lot) Less“ – staff writer Sierra Black wrote a great piece on thinking outside of the box about reducing living cost. In many ways the article reminded me of Jacob’s website called “EarlyRetirementExtreme” who is a master of reducing living costs (I believe his annual cost is around $12,000?).

MoneyFunk: “How to Control Emotional Spending“ – This is a great writeup on a problem that I personally don’t have, but I can imagine many others do. I especially like this post because it identifies a problem not mentioned much, and provides an action plan to help! Nice job!!!

My Favorite Post from Money Reasons:

The Shawshank Redemption, Lessons Learned – I like this post because the movie was so great! I almost chose “Lunch Budget Experiment Update #3” instead, but I’m going to evolve that experiment next week, so stay tuned!

Closing Thoughts:

After some thinking, I’ve come to realized that success in life is more a recipe list than just money. Just money by itself, is just paper. If you don’t use your money for forging memories with family and friends… what’s the point?

So we had a $200.00 day this past Saturday for our trip to Cedar Point and yes it was expensive for my standards, but my kids are that much happier now, plus it’s out of their system for the next month or so… Today (in about 3 hours, yawn), I’m going to take my son to play golf. He asked to do it 3 days ago, so I think we are due (oh he’s now taking golfing lessons, yay!).

I hope you enjoyed this fine summer weekend!

-MR

2 comments »

Posted in Kids, Weekly Review

Tags: Cedar Point summer fun

The Shawshank Redemption, Lessons Learned

June 26th, 2010

The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies, and since it’s the #1 movie on IMDB.COM, I guess others feel the same way!

Okay, if you haven’t seen “The Shawshank Redemption” or if you haven’t read “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” stop here and do yourself a favor and watch the movie (or listen to the audio-book), because the rest of this post could potentially be a spoiler!

The Shawshank Redemption is about Andy Dufresne who was wrongfully incarcerated for a crime that he didn’t commit. The movie (and book), shows the hardships that he overcame when we was in prison and his triumphs. The movie is a huge Lemons to Lemonade kind of message, and then some!

I think what makes the movie so fascinating is that fact that Andy never gets broken. And even though his life looks bleak at the best, he still accomplishes positive things! Some of the things he accomplishes in the movie is a vast improvement and expansion of the prison library, the High School Equivalency Program (HSEP) program implementation for prisoners, beer on for the roofing crew, and the playing of music for the entire facility once.

A turning point in the movie is when a new transferred prisoner has evidence that could enable Andy to have another trial and clear is name. The warden ends up killing the transferred prisoner. This is when Andy is almost broken, but instead he takes this negative and converts it to a positive by escaping through a tunnel he’s been digging out for years.

Personally, I took away from the movie to never give up. And the same message should be applied to life and finances. Make the best of things no matter what you are doing! Some of us only live for the weekend, and that’s a big waste of time and life! Make everyday count, be creative!

This is one of the reasons I started blogging! This is a great outlet for me and I get to tell my journey and share my thoughts.

As the character, Andy Dufresne in the movie says: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

If you watched it, what did you get out of it or why is it one of your favorites?

-MR

Update: