Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for February, 2011

How Independent Are We Really?

February 28th, 2011

What if

In my humble opinion, we are very dependent… on both public systems and businesses!

When I moved out of my parent’s house back when I was a teenager going to college, I thought that I was independent! I felt like such a grown-up, making my way in the world, going to college to better myself. Once I bought my first car and house, I had similar feelings.

Once I got my car and house paid off, I thought wow, I’m totally debt free, how independent I am. I thought in 10 years, I’d totally be financially free, I’m such an independent guy!

Compared to most folks, I’m average, oh maybe I’m better with my finances than most (I’m so financially savvy), but similar in level of independence.

So I got the thinking, how independent am I, in the truest sense of the word?

Let’s pretend that the end of the world as we know it will happen in 2012 (hopefully not) and the world is destroyed, but many of us were still alive. Barring some massive contamination of the earth, how independent would I be if there were no electricity, water or energy systems in place? What if we were reduced to using manual tools and basic skills to survive?

I’m not going to discuss the transportation system, but everybody should realize that after a few years, those would begin to fall apart or get overgrown with vegetation.

Okay, so how would my family cope with the following concerns:

Water: I would have to move immediately closer to a water source. My house doesn’t have any pond or lake close by, and water would be a good thing to have! Oh, I might stay in my house until the gas in my car runs out, but after than I would have to move closer to water!
Hopefully I can find a unoccupied house close to that water source above!
Food, pre-packaged food for me. I don’t have a garden or even canned food that would last me longer than a week. Ouch, I’m going hungry soon if I don’t figure out a food source. Next year or whenever spring occurs, a garden would be top priority if I can find seeds!
I’ll miss wearing clothes (lol)! Hopefully I can rummage though a clothing store of some sort, grabbing as much as I can! if not then it’ll be deer skins for me (hopefully)
“Candles“, how are they made again? Those would be gone in the store too, light is a good thing, I’ll miss that at night!
Boy, I’m already missing seafood… and pizza, and McDonalds (lol)
I hope my shoes last a long time! I better stock up on those too.
Paper, pencils, pens, erasers – Welcome to the new/old version of the internet.
I hope my bed lasts a long time! I hate sleeping on the ground! I better grab more blankets, the winters will be much colder. Perhaps I should move south too…
I don’t hunt, but apparently, I will now have too.
Dirt is now my friend since I don’t have running water for a shower and I can’t clean the carpet without a vacuum cleaner.
Sniff, I miss my nicely groomed lawn (sort of, nawwww)…
I better find some decent knives and sharpening stones!

Okay, I can keep going on, but obviously I’m very depending on society and the marketplace to provide the majority of my needs!

What dependent are you? What would it be like if you didn’t have electricity, running water, sewage (oh yeah, the world would stink again), and grocery/department stores to provide your needs?

-MR

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15 comments »

Posted in lifestyle

Tags: 2010 disaster 2012 End of the World financial independence independence Surviving

Carnival of the Yakezie #50, The Quickening

February 27th, 2011

The Quickening

Wow, I can’t believe we are almost 2 month into the year 2011 already! Time truly is flying! Theme of this Yakezie Carnival is quickness. So with respect to time and speed, I’ve chosen to put the contributors in my carnival in the order that I received them.

Okay, now that the theme of the Yakezie is defined, what exactly do I mean my “The Quickening”? Well it’s actually a concept from a now older movie called “Highlander“, and today it translates to mean “Git-R-Done“ with speed! All joking aside, it means hurry the hell up, or accelerate now.

And now finally you may be wondering, “What is Yakezie“? Well, Yakezie is a network of many of the best financial bloggers. The network is unique in that it contributes it’s earnings collected from donors and voluntary contributions by members to charities (currently scholarships). It’s truly a selfless endeavor that I’m proud to be a member of!

So now on the great lineup of articles submitted to the Yakezie Carnival!

Beating Broke: What Motivates Your Finances – What is it that motivates you in your finances? What makes you want to pay those bills off and live debt free? What do you most look forward to gaining by being debt free?

Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance: 6 Dangerous Investing Myths – Guest post by Rob Bennett at Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance. Interesting theory on asset allocation. It’s not the standard approach and offers a new viewpoint on an old topic.

Little House in the Valley: Creating a Budget After a Melt down – How to create a budget using a spreadsheet after a financial melt down. I’m really trying to push the key works “creating a budget” for organic searches. Thanks again and I’ve signed up to host one in a few weeks!

Faithful With A Few: 4 Credit Card Benefits You Should Not Ignore – There are many credit card benefits to consider before cutting up those cards! Find out the 4 most common credit card benefits, and if they are right for you!

Fat Guy Skinny Wallet: My First Day With Debbie Siebers And I Can Barely Walk! – My wife asked me this weekend about starting Debbie Siebers’ Slim In 6 workout program with her today! The first day punished my quads, but I’m not going to quit!! Plus, we still haven’t eaten out!

The Millionaire Nurse Blog: Money Success? – What is the difference between success and failure with your money? A few tips to help you succeed with your financial goals.

First Gen American: Babci on Time Management – Babci’s wisdom from an older day on Time Management. See if you agree with Babci!

Bucksome Boomer: Department Store Shopping Strategies – Save big at department stores with a three-pronged approach.

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: Make Money Blogging – Here’s how I made $6000 in less than a year of blogging in 2010!

Watson, Inc: What Keeps You On Track Financially? What makes you keep your eyes on the financial ball? Balance truly is the key to a fulfilling life and finances.

Everyday Tips & Thoughts: Change and Perspective – The unfolding of events in life can go either ways sometimes. Sometimes when life looks the most bleak, it can just as quickly take a quick turn for the better.

The Ultimate Juggle: How To Work – Working at work vs being at home with a baby requires adjustments to the style in which work gets prioritized and completed. I describe my scenario and how I cope.

Carnivals and Roundups that Money Reasons was in:

Thanks,

-MR

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17 comments »

Posted in Carnival

Tags: Finance Carnival Yakezie Carnival

Becoming Beautiful, What the Beautiful People Know

February 26th, 2011

Beauty By Weight Loss

What Beauty Really Is

Beauty is more physical health and confidence than direct looks! Oh sure, there are some women/men with very pretty faces, some even look like models, but if they are 40 pounds overweight and don’t practice good hygiene/grooming, they will not be considered beautiful.

Sometimes losing just 20 pounds will make a normal girl beautiful and a man handsome. I’ve seen such beauty come out, when a female friend (that was overweight by 40 pounds) lost her extra weight . The transformation was amazing! Not only did her basic body shape become incredible, her face even became much prettier too. When weight loss happens, it happens all over the body. So your face become more in shape too! Once her face became thinner, she was breathtaking! Who would have guessed?

I’ll see this while walking in the mall too, there will be a girl/woman most would consider normal, borderline homely, but I know if that girl/woman would just loss just 20 pounds she would be a knockout!

Photoshop Models

Models that we see on magazine covers aren’t real. They should really be called Photoshop girls, because photoshoped images are all that is on the magazine covers these days. Not to mention the position tricks to make them even more attractive. Some of the high heels on that the models wear for the pictures are almost like small stilts. And if you notice the bikini pictures, practically all the models are standing on there tiptoes. Not only does this make them look longer, but it also tightens up everything. IMHO, the tightening make them look even more healthy.

Photoshop can make model faces practically flawless and thin girls thinner… From a technology standpoint it’s impressive, but not real.

The end of the following video is amazing. when it get to the end pause it, I’m sure you’ll be amazed! I wonder if makeup can accomplish some of this look too?

Actually, I not as impressed as I use to be by models. After seeing a few episodes of “Top Model Search”, I have come to the conclusion that most models only look great for that 1 particularly great picture, but in normal moving life, most don’t look that spectacular. Oh, there are exceptions, but they are rare.

Beauty is a comparison with others, but it doesn’t have to be a first place takes it all kind of comparison. Women, you don’t need to have the perfect breasts, buns and looks all at once. In fact, if you are just normal in all areas with any area that is a bit more polished, you will be considered beautiful.

The Beauty Of Being Healthy

Given all of the above, the really beauty of being healthy is the way it makes you feel. When I’m in shape, I have more energy and I’m just more content in general. Since I’ve been both thin and heavy, I feel very qualified to say this!

Being Beautiful is Really a Lifestyle Choice

Like the models from the “Model Reality” shows, you can have the potential to be beautiful, but if you don’t experiment with your body and looks, it will remain hidden (unless very obvious).

Your lifestyle should include some form of exercise, especially anaerobic exercises! Lifting weights is one of the best ways to reshape your body the way you’d like! Both women and men should include working out with weights!

Clothes Makes the Man/Woman

I forgot to mention that clothes can make a big difference too. In fact if you aren’t in perfect shape, clothes can be a great way to hide that fact!

Conclusion

I guess what I’m trying to say is, life is short, why not try to look your best and be the most health you can be. Get out, do things, start new things, be healthy and beautiful!

-MR

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4 comments »

Posted in Health

Tags: beautiful beauty experiment to be beautiful Work on your beauty workout to be beautiful

Using Dividend Stocks For Extra Spending Money

February 25th, 2011

I would like to buy some dividend paying stocks so I can use the dividend for Extra Spending Money instead of using money from earned income.

First let me say that each month I thought I only spent $250 as my personal Extra Spending Money, but I was wrong! I spend well over $300. While I’m going to use $300 as my basis for the calculations below, I want to go back to the $200 to $250 that I use to consume someday.

My current formula for using money for my “Extra Spending Money” is a more of a consumption based model. This is where once the money is gone, it’s gone! Here are my simplified steps:

The money I have allocated for spending, all gets spent
I have zero dollars left at the end of the month.

My future formula for using my “Extra Spending Money” will be a investing-spending hybrid model. I envision it as the following steps:

I save $200 of the $300 that I have allocated.
$100 of the $300 is for spending.
Invest the savings into a stock that provides a 5% dividend.
After year 1use the dividends to help supplement the $100…
Eventually as the dividend become big enough, stop spending the $100 and have it go into the dividend stock.

This process will be similar to my Free Lunch Experiment, but this experiment require much more money invested and time than the Lunch experiment. So I’ll have to do it gradually over years, unless I come up with a way to speed up the investment contribution.

For example, just to generate a monthly $50 from the stock, I’d have to have $12,000 lump sum at an interest rate of at least 5%. So that would mean some far off future day, to get up to the minimum $200 level, I would need to save at least $48,000 to $50,000 at a similar 5% interest rate. and this isn’t even taking into account taxes and inflation! I could envision the true amount that I would need for the month $200 payout being more in the range between $80,000 to $100,000.

I will provide more details in the future, thanks!

-MR

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10 comments »

Posted in Investments

Tags: dividend dividend stocks dividends free spending money personal spending money

Are Unknown Things Preventing You From Achieving Success?

February 24th, 2011

There are many reasons why you aren’t as success as you could be!

Perhaps you have allergies and in the summer your head is constantly floating like a helium balloon that a child is jerking around on a string… I suffered from bad allergies that made my life miserable until I got 5 years worth of weekly allergy shots. It’s call immunotherapy, and it did work for me.

Or perhaps you were raised in such a way that college wasn’t probable or affordable, so you skipped it and went right to work. Or if you did have the money, perhaps you family and friends didn’t see the value in such an education and are holding you back?

Then again, it could be that you have something that you aren’t even aware of, maybe some aliment that you experience while everybody else doesn’t. Perhaps, you’ve gone around suffering through mild forms of pain that prevents you from focusing like normal people. You wouldn’t realize it, you’d just think it was a normal headache just like everybody else suffers through. Just part of life…, but what if you have food allergies and don’t realize it? Or worse some sort of chemical imbalance that prevents you from functioning at 100% capacity?

I know that it sounds like I’m presenting excuses after excuses, but unless you keep a journal of some sort, how will you recognize any patterns in your behavior or health and possible abnormalities?

I personally know a person that didn’t get the proper level of sleep because of a deviated septum of his nasal cavity. This caused him to snore so loudly that he would actually wake up after an hour of sleeping (or so he claims). My childhood friend would often appear as if he was sleepwalking or in some sort of zombie state… Or at least he did until he got his deviated septum fixed! He’s now an alert and lively guy and his breathing pattern is noticeable different! Good for him!

The point is, if you find that things aren’t going as successfully as possible for you, try to identify the critical weaknesses in your life and either work on strengthening those deficient areas, or find ways to compensate for those particular faults .

Please feel free voice any weaknesses you’ve had to overcome to be successful.

-MR

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