Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for November, 2010

Funny Money Comic 6 – Traffic Jam Rant

November 20th, 2010

Please comment on how you feel about the following comic in the Comment section below! That’s where the rants really starts!

Previous: Funny Money Comic 5 – Mr. Penny is Making a List
Next…….: Funny Money Thanksgiving Holiday Break 2010

Comic Strip Notes:

I hate when someone goes on the brim just to avoid traffic jams. One of my friends does this, and it drives me crazy! I find this character flaw in him very upsetting!!!

Links to 3 Funny or Interesting Sites:

Grumpy Rumblings Of The Untenured: Personal goals update: This time smarter Start out funny, but then turns out to be a get list! Check it out, see if you agree!

Sweating the Big Stuff: Funny Finances: Episode 2 – This is a funny story but has a great lesson within, Check it out, I’m sure you’ll agree!

J – My Daughter (who is 6 years old): Mr Plate Runs – This is a comic that she drew and came up with the punch line all by herself! Do I have the coolest daughter or what?!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

-MR

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11 comments »

Posted in Humor

Tags: comic rant Mr Penny

Like Father, Like Daughter: J Comic #1 – Mr Plate Runs

November 19th, 2010

I showed my Saturday comic series on my blog to my6-year-old daughter and she loved it! Since my comic strip series does look a bit like a kid’s cartoon, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised…

So without further ado, Here is the comic strip created by my 6 year old daughter!

My Daughter's First comic

Thanks J!

My daughter loves to write books! She usually averages 1 or 2 a day easily! Part of her books creating process is drawing the illustrations. Once she saw my comic, she know that she could help out by creating a comic strip of her own! So that this exactly what she did!

I think kids are great and any additional encouragement that they can get is wonderful! So I was both happy and honored to let her include her comic strip series on my site!

Here is some background information about her comic strip:

My daughter did all the artwork herself
I scanned the image up and helped colored them in. I also made some lines darker because of scanner issues.
My daughter did the word bubbles and all of the text!
I’m very proud of her for offering to help me with the blog!

I hope you enjoyed the comic strip from my 6-year-old daughter! She’s always been artistic and helpful. I know that her post will be one of my most favorite ones, especially as time folds!

So if you can leave a comment for her, I’m sure she would love it. Afterall, I’m sure she’ll be reading them

Thanks!

-MR

21 comments »

Posted in Humor

Tags: kid art Kid comic

4 Common Styles of Lifestyle Spending: Always, Early, Later, Never

November 18th, 2010

There are 4 common styles of lifestyle spending: Always, Early, Later, Never

Always Spender:

This style of spending has no restrictions and massive debt is common to this particular lifestyle spending. The spender may follow this path because they have a short lifespan, they believe an unseen hand will provide and take care of them. they are rich, they may be weak-minded or low self-esteem, and too many other reasons to list them all…

Unless you are rich, have a short lifespan, or extremely lucky, this lifestyle will have the spender paying later in their life by living in poverty. Still, is this an incorrect lifestyle to live? For most of us (including me) yes, but for other, it depends on their situation.

Early Spender:

This style of spending typically happens when you are also young and finally are cut loose from your parents. Some kids go wild with their spending because they are their own boss, or because they weren’t properly educated in financial matters! There are many great bloggers out there that come from this type of background (J.D. roth @ www.Getrichslowly.org, Jason @ www.Frugaldad.com and Jeff @ www.deliverawaydebt.com).

Like the above bloggers, with some dedicated focus and determination, the Early spender can recover from this debt and still go on to acquire great wealth!

Later Spender:

This style of spending happens when the new spender achieves a certain level of financial security, and thus starts spending a bit more money than they did earlier. It’s common for these spenders to be financial independent when they start to loosen the purse strings on their finances. Of course, often times these spenders still continue to save more than they spend! This groups should be able to leave behind an inheritance for their kids.

This is the style that I am pursuing, although I’m not really financial independent yet! While I intend on spending more, I too, still plan to save more than I spend! I just want to increase my spending a little more, but not too drastically!

Never Spender:

Another name for this style of spending is Miserly. In my opinion, this group is the worst to be in! This groups lives in a continual state of depravity. They are constantly looking to save a buck at the expense of everything else!

Scrooge is a character in The Christmas Carol, but he epitomizes the miser fairly well.

Conclusion:

So in my opinion, I would not want to be a “Never” or an “Always” spender! Both of these spender types have too much of a negative end results. Obviously, I’d rather be a “Later” spender than an “Always” spender!

There is another spending style that is not common and somewhat difficult to achieve, and that is the Balanced spender! The typical balanced spender may have a budget to control their spending! This may be the best of all of the spenders types because they accomplish their savings goals, while still spending money on fun stuff!

A great example of blogger that follow this path are Crystal @ BudgetingInTheFunStuff.com and J. Money @ BudgetsAreSexy.com!

-MR

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33 comments »

Posted in lifestyle

Tags: Spender Types spending

Another Big Stock Market Dip, What Did I Do?

November 17th, 2010

Yesterday, the DOW stock market measure dipped 187 points, so what did I do?

I did nothing!

The market responded to something going on over in the Chinese government as they try to control inflation in China. I’ve seen similar announcement like this before, the market drops like a bowling ball dropped in a toilet, then during the following week, it recovers its losses. In some way it’s like a broken record…

What I should have done was buy more quality stock or other investments while the market was low, but I froze. I actually have money sitting. waiting for such a dip, but it’s hard to take that leap of faith, and I hesitated.

The market also took new about Walmart sales dropping slightly for same store sales. But like last year and the year before that, it’ll be the day after Thanksgiving and the amount of shoppers out in the market on that day, that will determine if holiday sales are boom or bust.

I’ll admit, part of the reasons I hesitated was because I didn’t have any particular stocks that I wanted to buy. The reason I didn’t have any stock that I was looking at, was not because of any stocks per se, but instead because I hadn’t really been following the market as closely as I usually do.

If I had done my homework, and had a stock lined up… I might have jumped in. Even with a stock lined up though, it’s still a hard decision when the forces that be are knocking the market down like a UFC fighter (like the old version of Chuck Liddell) throwing a knockout punch.

Most of us follow our hearts and stay put in such market downturns, or even worse sell shares…

Was anyone brave enough to jump in yesterday?

-MR

16 comments »

Posted in Investments

Tags: Investments stock market stocks

Being a Genius Doesn’t Equal Success In Real Life

November 16th, 2010

Spock-like

When I was a young boy, I use to wish I were a genius, thinking life would be so much easier if I was truly brilliant. However, lately, I have changed my mind and here is why.

I have a childhood friend that we’ll call Leroy who was very smart, actually a genius! Much like the fictional character Encyclopedia Brown, Leroy would read the dictionary and memorize the spelling and meaning of each word and definition there-in.

As a kid growing up, it always amazed me that he knew so much! He was always correcting my word usage, and was in many ways like having my own Mr. Spock when we hung out occasionally.

But, being a genius like my neighborhood friend sometimes comes at a steep, costly price!

You see, my friend graduated with a doctorate in chemistry. He worked hard for that degree and I’m sure he did an amazing job all the way through college!

But my childhood friend also lacks people skills and sometimes doesn’t see the obvious answers to things.

I heard from other friends in my old neighborhood that after graduating, Leroy told them that he wasn’t going to send out resumes, and that he expected companies to come and find him, instead of Leroy going out and trying to get hired. Once, I heard of the way he treated his job search, I realized that college was a big waste of time and money for him.

I also heard that he was working in my old neighborhood at a supermarket as a stock boy. Even though the source was highly reputable, I still wasn’t sure if I believed that story! Until I saw it with my own eyes!!! While driving home from visiting my parents, my son asked for a certain type of candy from the grocery store. It was 10:00pm, but I stopped anyway! I ran in to purchase it and lo and behold, there was Leroy stocking cans on the shelves.

And while there is nothing wrong with being a stock boy, seeing a stock boy with a doctorate in chemistry, stock shelves, was still pretty shocking! Being financially oriented, the first think that popped in my mind was cost of obtaining his doctorate and what a waste of money that was!

That’s when he saw me! He wasn’t ashamed (as I would have been), in fact he came over shook my hand and updates me with what was going on in the neighborhood and his life. Apparently, he was waiting for a big company to sweep him off of his feet (like Cinderella), but in the mean time, he stocked shelves and lived at home with his parents, in the basement (oh, he’s in his 30s, by the way).

So the moral of this particular sad story is… “If you are smart, make sure you also have the necessary people skills in life, and if you don’t… then develop them”! Perhaps if such geniuses as my friend were to read the book “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, it could help. After all, this book is recommended by Warren Buffett!

Do you know of any friends that are off of the IQ charts with a brilliant intellect, but largely unsuccessful? What do you think is holding them back?

-MR

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