Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for January, 2011

Starting The Year Out Hard

January 21st, 2011

So far I’m starting this year out hard!

2010 was a bad year for me, even though I paid off my mortgage and my sister had a baby! I’ve been hoping that 2011 would be a much better year, but so far, the year is starting out hard!

Hard Events of 2011, so far:

A old friend’s dad died at the very beginning of the year. I went down alone because everybody in my family was busy.
A co-worker’s father-in-law died and we were short-staffed at work, so I volunteered to cover third shift while he was in china for two weeks. This shift was draining… I won’t be doing this again, EVER!
It was determined that my son needs braces, BAM… getting them will cost over $4,000!
I went to lunch one day at taco bell, and hit the snow-covered wall rim of the drive-thru with my tire, boom I got a flat! Of course I didn’t bring a coat since I knew I was just going through the drive-thru. So there I was changing the tire out in the snow without a coat on. Next I took the tire to a shop to get patch, but the side wall had a tear, so I had to get a new tire grrrr!

No doubt, this is a horrible start of the year! You might think I would be down, but I’m not. Life happens and you need to keep a positive outlook no matter what! So to the year 2011, I say bring it!!!

Life is full of bumps and this year I’m not going to dwell on my problems! It’s full steam ahead for me!

How is your 2011 so far? I still believe this will be a much better year for me that 2010!

-MR
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30 comments »

Posted in Problems

Tags: new year starting hard year out

10 Ways To Improve Your Chances To Become Rich

January 20th, 2011

Honestly, Are you trying to become rich?

I’ll admit there is more that I could do to try to breach the point where my passive income exceeds my expenses, but I choose not to.

Although I’m frugal, I’m quite sure that I could run an even tighter financial ship!

Below is a quick list of ways that I could improve my chances to become rich:

I could use budgets and do extreme couponing to whittle my consumption expenses down much lower!
I could try to get more free stuff via giveaways online. Free stuff is great and believe it or not, it’s out there with some work.
I could create a budget to identify where my weaknesses are and plan to fix them accordingly!
I could get another job by working during a second shift period. This would have a huge impact on my savings game since my first job covers all of my living expenses. This means I could pocket almost all of my earnings from the second job.
I could try to expand my hobby activities into other forms of social media. This could practically double my hobby income.
I could create a goals spreadsheet to track my saving goals and keep me on track… This is more important than it sounds! Feedback is a great thing!
I could create an investing goal to track my investments performance. This could help determine if I should start investing more into index ETFs etc…
I could borrow tools/things from family, neighbors and friends more. Why buy a sidewalk edger when I only use it once a year?
I could do a better job of reducing my taxes, a Roth IRA is a great vehicle to reduce taxes on dividends from stocks, etc.
I could do a better job of reducing my gas expenses, treat driving as a real expense instead of just ignoring it.

There are plenty other ways that I could improve my chances of becoming rich some day. Surprisingly, I now realize that I”m only putting in about half the effort that I should be putting into getting rich…

-MR

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28 comments »

Posted in Uncategorized, Wealth

Tags: financial planning planning rich Wealth

Just A Little Bit More

January 19th, 2011

In technical stock market lingo, there is such a concept as a line of resistance. Such a line of resistance keeps a stock bound in a price range that it’s somehow needs to overcome. Unfortunately, in our personal lives I believe that somewhere along the line we’ve all learned to create similar lines of resistance in too.

Often we go through lives where sometimes we hit a homerun or score the big goal, but then start to pace ourselves, saving ourselves for something on down the line that may never happen. I’ve guilty of follow this kind of behavior myself.

But what if we are wrong? What if that something we are saving ourselves for never happens or worse yet, we aren’t up to the challenge because we have been saving ourselves for so long that we are now rusty, and no longer the potential champion we once were?

I ask this because I’ve seen other do this including my son and myself. We do some superhero activity, then for some reasons we pull back as if someone would discover that we truly super we can be. I often wonder if it’s because of a base of shyness? Perhaps some people (including me), were raised to specifically not be the center of attention.

Whatever the reasons, I think we can overcome these little issues by doing just a little bit more. Put in a little more effort each day, no matter what. Run a little harder during sport games and practices. Think a little harder during each day to try to fine tune your mind.

Make it a habit to continue to increase your efforts each and every day. I believe that if we do just a little bit more, eventually we’ll break through our own personal line of resistance and explode to the upside.

-MR

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12 comments »

Posted in Inspirational

Tags: self help self improvement

Buying Dividend Stocks For Christmas Expenses

January 18th, 2011

Christmas Fund

Christmas is just around the corner (lol), so I thought I’d prepare now just to get a small jump on my Christmas expenses.

Okay, I’m buying dividends for Christmas expenses but most likely I won’t use it until year 2012 or maybe even 2013…

I’ve had such great success with My Lunch Experiment, that I decided I wanted to do something similar with another source target for the stock dividends to be allocated for. The beauty of the Lunch Experiment is that the money was free in some respects, since its money that would have been spent if I didn’t come up with the idea for the lunch experiment in the first place.

The money for a Christmas Fund is a bit tougher since the money for my lunch experiment was supplied by the money that I would have spent on lunch out at work.

I ended up gathering up money from sources where my paper money was just sitting doing nothing at home.

Money Sources included the following:

Cash that was sitting in a drawer in my office. This purpose of this money was used for cash gifts for Birthdays (mainly for the kids).
Cash that was sitting in a small firebox in the basement.
Money that I had stashed in my car for “on the road” emergencies
A few small piggy banks around the house
And finally 100 dollars I had in between a few pages of a book.

All told, I was able to collect about $1,200 for the purchase of the dividend stock(s) that will be used in the Christmas Fund purchase today. I’m tempted by some high stock yields, but I’m probably going to settle on less risky dividend yields(shooting for the 3% to 5% range).

After I get money back from income taxes, I think I’ll add in $1,300 to the amount in the fund, bringing the total to $2,500. This should be a great base for such a fund!

I think after a number of years, once I get to $12,000 in the fund, I will only contribute $500 per year.

I know it seems like I’m really focused on dividends lately, but I really want to get these funds established early this year! I’ve learned thought previous experience if I don’t start them early when it’s still solidly on my mind, the task may get put off, sometimes for years.

-MR

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15 comments »

Posted in Goal Funds

Tags: Christmas Dividend Fund dividend buying Christmas presents stock dividends stock funds using dividends to buy presents

Business Opportunities Through Family and Friends

January 17th, 2011

When I was younger, I use to work at my grandparent’s furniture store occasionally for a small amount of money. I was just a small boy, so I didn’t work for long periods of time. Most of the task I got paid for was dusting off merchandise on shelves and other trivial activities.

Later when I was sixteen, a close family member got me into a union controlled grocery store. The store was managed by a cruel older man who had worked in the grocery business since he was 13-year-old. The seasoned store manager treated everybody like dirt, so the work environment was horrible. At this store location, there always seemed to be a lot of backstabbing negative and often illegal activities, so this was a very negative experience for the young worker that I was.

After such a bad experience, I didn’t want anything to do with family or friends getting me a job! Now looking back, I realized that I missed many opportunities from family and friends that presented potentially great employment options to me! The business opportunities were both direct and indirect ones!

The direct business opportunities are pretty obvious. A direct opportunity is when work is offered to you via a job offer. That said, you may be wondering what I am talking about when I say “indirect business opportunities”.

Indirect business opportunities through family or friends are those opportunities that we are able to create or find ourselves. While not obvious, if you keep your eyes and mind open, such opportunities exists or can be created!

I thought I would conclude this post with an example that I recently learned about:

A cousin of a co-worker is well on his way to becoming a rich entrepreneur by fully taking advantage of indirect business opportunities through family and friends. Rich (the cousin) was smart enough start a business that was a sure bet.

What was this incredible business? Rich created a dumpster business. You see many of Rich’s family and friends are successful homebuilders. Instead of competing directly with them, he decided to create a business that could benefit off of their success. This was a win-win because they have enough competition already and they use his business for their dumpster needs.

I’d also like to mention that Rich has other business too. For example, I know that he is also a landlord.

So look around, do you see any side or full business that you could create?

-MR

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