Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for June, 2010

Weekly Cache 2010, June 20 Cleaning Up

June 20th, 2010

Weekly Cache 2010, June 20 Cleaning Up

Weekly Thoughts:

There was a lot of cleanup work performed this week. We got our family room carpet replaced (our dog ripped a hole in it), started working on organizing my office, and worked all day Saturday fixing computers at work (long story…).

I had a lot of big plans this weekend, that had to be canceled! We were going to go boating with friends, swimming at the grandparents (we still might do this Sunday), and see a movie. Sometimes, life just flows that way…

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

FrugalDad: An open letter to my son – A very touching post that all fathers should reflect on this coming Father’s Day. Give yourselves a pat on the back! Expertly stated my Frugal Dad.

Little House In The Valley: Multiple Streams of Income – This is Little House’s personal multiple steams!!! Based on the post, I think she’s going a great job establishing some decent steams of income!

Wealth Pilgrim: Should you use a professional Trustee for your Trust? - Neal discusses why you shouldn’t use a professional Trustee and instead go with a family member and why!

Everyday tips and thoughts: Appreciate the small things in Life! - Kris makes a great frugal point! The list she enumerates is a very good one!

Budgeting in the fun stuff: My Fedex Experience - BFS’s interesting but frustrating story about her bad Fedex Experience, and the almost happy ending!

My Favorite Post from Money Reasons:

The Joneses Are Moving To A Larger House I was sad to see our very professional, wealthy neighbors upscale to a larger house and yard, but such is life. I wish them the best!

Closing Thoughts:

This has been a hectic but very productive past week! Hopefully next week will be less hectic but just as productive! I’ll be glad to get some more time to read “The Snowball”, which is a book about Warren Buffett!

Hope your week was great!

-MR

6 comments »

Posted in Weekly Review

Tags: fathers day weekly cache

Warren Buffett Was A Renter

June 19th, 2010

I’ve started to read “The Snowball“, which is a biography of Warren Buffett. So far, it’s a facinating book, that has changed my perspective on my “Financial Hero #2 Warren Buffett” post.

Although I’m only 1/4 of the way through the book, I wanted to mention something that I wouldn’t have guess about Warren Buffett. He was a Renter!

There was a time when Mr. Buffett was just a little rich (my my standards) and so he was a renter. When he was 26 year old (and rich by most of our standards), he said that he was retired (but really this was just the beginning). He had gathered enough money by that age that he would live off of the money he had at the time. He believed that he could live off of that money through his stock market skills (and he was right). But he didn’t stop there, no sir! He started managing trusts for people. They would invest and he would manage their money into investments.

Warren rented because he didn’t want to tie up his money in a house at that time, after all, he needed to live off of the interest on the stocks he owned. This was highly unusual at the time, especially considering that even at 26, he would have be considered rich by most standards.

So all of you Renters out there that claim your way is the best… you might be right, especially if you have investing skills like Warren did.

The catch is he didn’t rent for very long after he was 26… Eventually he bought a house (I think the one he lives in today).

So you crafty renters out there that might be investing tons of money! Hats off to you all!

-MR

13 comments »

Posted in Mortgages

Tags: Buffett Renter;Renting

Frugally Free Fishing For Kids… With Rubber Gloves

June 18th, 2010

It’s funny, just these past few years, I’ve found out that fishing is free for kids under 16 in my state! So that means I can take both of my kids fishing without paying for a fishing license ($16 per year per adult).

So last year, I took my son and daughter fishing, and to my surprise, they had a blast. My son had a ball casting over and over again. And I got to teach my daughter the ropes. Of course, I was constantly nervous of getting hooked or them getting hooked, but it worked out okay. It was nice just hanging out with them.

My son caught a few small bluegill. My daughter had some bites but didn’t give the fishing pole that little jerk that hooks the fish, perhaps this year she’ll do better.

When I was a kid, my older uncles gave me grief about baiting the worm on the hook and after catching a fish, taking the fish off of the hook. I did it, but didn’t like it!!! Now, it’s 2nd nature to me, but my kids are in the same circumstance I was in as a kid.

So what trick do I use to make it more pleasant so that my kids want to go fishing?

I decided to buy some rubber gloves to make it easier on my kids. My daughter’s still not to crazy about the process, but my son took to the gloves like a fish in water (sorry, corny joke).

The beauty of using the gloves is if you get them wet first, it’s better for the fish because when you use your hands, you take some of the protective oil off of the body of the fish. So it’s a win-win! My son enjoys using the gloves so the bony fins don’t jab him, and we help keep the fish healthy at the same time (if we release it)!

Oh, I do want to share one little tip! If you just want the kids to fish for smaller fish, try small cut up pieces of hot dogs! They worked better than worms when we were in Disney World last year.

Do you use any special tricks to make an activity a little more enjoyable? If you do, what is the activity and what’s your trick?

-MR

6 comments »

Posted in Entertainment, Free, Kids

Tags: fishing with gloves free fishing kids fishing

The Invisible War Against the Oceans

June 17th, 2010

The more I see the spread of the oil spill, the more I think it looks like we set off a oil bomb that is equivalent to an explosion of a nuclear bomb’s mushroom cloud in the ocean!

Then I started thinking about other ways that we are causing damage to our oceans and the corresponding sea life.

This BP oil spill has the potential to kill thousands of sea creatures in addition to making the beaches unappealing to tourist. It’s interesting that we really don’t seem to care about all the dolphins, fish, birds, etc that will be killed in this Oil spill disaster!

So what else are we doing to make our oceans a cesspool? Well, we all know that the United States, Russian and other countries have dumped nuclear waste from their nuclear reactors into the ocean. The United States has stopped that, but I bet some countries still does this (even if it is under the covers).

Garbage also has been dumped into the ocean directly (New York use to do this), but I can guarantee that their are definitely some other countries that are going this still today. Cruise ships still dump their garbage into the ocean when they are out at sea.

Next we have the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a slow churning of plastic waste products swirling in the ocean between Hawaii and Japan. It’s size is hard to estimate, some say it’s ranges between the size of Texas to the size of the entire U.S.! The bad thing is that fish are eating the smaller pieces of plastic and then we eventually eat the fish, or other animals eat the fish.

I really have to wonder how much damage we (all countries, not just the U.S.) are doing to the ocean and in the end to ourselves?

-MR

10 comments »

Posted in Environment, Problems

Tags: great garbage patch ocean garbage oil spill war against ocean

The True Cost Of A Family Movie Night

June 16th, 2010

Yes, now that school is out, the kids wanted to have a family movie night yesterday (Tuesday), so my wife caved (probably she caved because my daughter asked, and it’s hard to turn her down when my my beautiful 6 year old daughter’s face is all scuffed up from her accident yesterday). We both hurt when we look at her, I know I would have caved too :(

So, thinking about it, I decided to post the cost associated with our displaced family movie night (it’s displaced because it’s usually on Fridays).

Costs of Hosting Our Family Movie Night:

The movie media (DVD): I usually go to the library to get the movies (although lately, we have been going to red box) during lunch. Of course, when it is from the library, the cost is free. It’s free because I typically go to the library every workday to work on this blog. When it’s Red Box, it’s a buck plus gas…
1 bag of Popcorn (4.00 for a package of 3), so since we only use 1 bag, it’s runs us $1.41 (this number includes taxes).
Reeses Pieces and other candies: oh lets say 75 cents.
Pop for my everybody except my daughter who drinks juice still: $1.25
Electricity: Whoa! I’m getting way to detailed, besides the cost for electricity would be the same since the TV would be on anyway… we’ll skip this cost!

So all told, if we average the movie media (DVD) cost between the library and Red Box, the total cost for “Family Movie Night” comes to….: $3.91!!! This number contrasts to my previous calculations where I underestimated that the total costs came to only $2.00

Not as bad as going to a movie theater, but still not free either! I can honestly say, that before we just did this exercise, I just had a guess with respect as to how much we spent for a “family movie night” event! My previous estimate was too low…

However, the $3.91 cost is well worth the family bonding & snuggling times, and laughs that the entire family encounters as we watch the movies together.

My favorite part of Family Movie Night is hearing the honest laugher from my son when he finds something funny. It’s truly heart warming…

What is the cost of your favorite near free family activities? Most have hidden costs that you don’t often associate with the activity itself… like gasoline cost to go to the park, etc…

Enjoy the summer!

-MR

5 comments »

Posted in Entertainment, Family, Kids

Tags: family bonding family costs family laughs family movie night Movie cost