Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for February, 2011

Road Rage, Realize The Enemy Could Be You!

February 23rd, 2011

Road Rage! now they have a smart phone application out for it… but the problems is that to use the app, you have to type the license of the offending driver into the smart phone (not an easy task even when you are not driving!). So if you take the risk of typing a “hard to type” license plate, aren’t you basically being an irresponsible driver too? So wouldn’t that make you a hypocrite?

I have a friend that once he finds out about this smart phone app, I’m sure he’s going to purchase it, but should he?

Whenever my friend drives, he looks for things to complain about on the road… He’ll say “That lady is going to slow (usually by 3 mph) in the slow lane, so he’ll speed up like a maniac till he’s almost hitting her back-end, then he’ll swerve into the other lane, floor it, and then cut in front of her by the thinnest of margins. I’m sure the target of his anger has to put on their brakes commonly out of fear. This trend happens every time…

My friend has an economic 4 cylinder small car (kudos to him for being green!) and it’s a bit nerve-racking to be a passenger when he swerves in from of a semi-truck with a trailer! But that’s exactly what he does! Nobody likes to have him drive when we all go to lunch!

So my friend calls almost everybody else an A-hole on the roads, but in reality, he’s the worse offender of all on the pavement!

Oh sure, he gets mad and I suggest that it wouldn’t bother me and I repeat that everybody is like that or that’s probably happened because that person is so young… But these comments I make just slip off of him like burnt eggs in a teflon pan…

So I ask, no I beg everyone, when you are on the road please don’t get unreasonably angry! It doesn’t do any good, and the person that you are directing your anger at isn’t going to change!

Do you have friends like mine, or is he just an extreme case?

-MR

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19 comments »

Posted in Problems

Tags: driving carefully driving responsibly keeping your cool road rage

Keep Your Cool To Save Money

February 22nd, 2011

No tickets please

While driving in town, I saw a man in a minivan with his wife and 2 children waiting for a spot to park in a spot downtown where someone was leaving. He just sat there patiently waiting, but then the person leaving the spot pulled out oddly, then enabled someone else coming the other way to cut across 2 lanes of traffic and park there first.

The spot stealer was an elderly couple and I don’t think that they stole the spot on purpose. I really believe they were unaware of the person waiting, and through a fluke of timing and the odd way the person leaving left, they were able to steal the spot.

Now the man waiting for the spot was hot (as I would be too). So he took off and ran a newly turned red light by squealing his tires around the intersection that was only a few yards away.

Through his anger-invoked folly, he just happened to tear (with tires squealing) through the intersection turn as a police car happened to be in the opposite lane sitting 2 cars from the light! I saw the police car and thought “oh crap”, as did the offending driver as he quickly pulled over knowing he was busted before the police car got a chance to move.

I know why the man did it, and I would have done it too if I were as young as he was. When I turned my car down the street where the man got pulled over, I saw the police man writing the driver a ticket. I felt bad for him as I could tell he was just a normal guy that got raked over the coals by bad timing and bad luck that day.

I’m pretty sure the police officer gave the man 2 tickets, one for driving through a red light, and another for reckless driving. I’m sure it’s going to cost him well over $200 dollars. Hopefully what he learned from his bad day is to keep his cool, because it can be costly, both financially and physically, especially with 2 small children in the car.

The kicker is that I would have done the same thing if the same events happened to me five years ago.

Have you learned to control your emotions in such scenarios? I did, but it took me a long time to do so.

-MR

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18 comments »

Posted in Savings

Tags: anger anger fines avoiding driving tickets controlling your anger getting a ticket

How Much Money Is a Lot of Money?

February 21st, 2011

Money keeps outgrowing me

Money has changed meaning to me as I grow older…

Of course inflation has had an impact on the worth of money, but I even see my kids valuing money similarly to the way I did as a kid, so I think what I type still applies today!

When $20 was a lot of money!

I once found about ten $20 dollar bills stuffed up on top of the kitchen cabinet as a kid! I quite literally though I found some hidden treasure from the previous owners of the house and that I was rich! At that point (I was 6 or 7), and I had never seen that much money.

At such a young age I thought I was rich! Heck, I even wanted to keep it a secret from my parents! My morals got the best of me though, and I told my mom about my discovery. She actually scolded me, telling me that I shouldn’t be getting into things. During the scolding, she told me she hides money for rainy days, and if I find other such hidden money… to leave it be.

When $100 was a lot of money!

Flash forward a few years (to the time when I was 10), and you’ll find that I’m impressed by the “Benjamins” at this age! While I didn’t own $100, occasionally I’d see them as my grandmother would count money from my grandparent’s businesses. While I didn’t think ten 100s would make me rich, I was still in awe of them!

When $100,000 was a lot of money!

During the age when I was 11 or 12 years old, I was playing video-games with my neighborhood buddies in one of their basement’s downstairs living room. Just out of the blue, I started thinking about how much money I would need to live life without working. As I did the calculations in my head, I finally figured that $100,000 at 10% interest should be all I need!

Of course, I had no idea that the $10,000 I would make from my investments would be less that the poverty level for a family of 4 in the US nor did I consider taxes…

When $1,000,000 was a lot of money!

Before reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, I use to think 1 million would be the amount I should strive to achieve. I figured that if I made 10% on that amount, I would receive $100,000 annually. I thought I would be very rich at that point. I was 15 years old at this point in time.

When $2,000,000 is a lot of money!

After reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, I realized that I should up my target goal to $2,000,000! I’m not sure if I’ll ever reach that point, but it seems to the best answer. You see, if I had $2,000,000 I’d only have to achieve a 5% return annually to have the income from my investment earn my $100,000 annually.

Now I think 5 million or more would be a lot of money!

Yes, now I realize that not only do I have to have money from my investment earning to spend, but I would also need a part of it to invest back into investments, so the portfolio could keep up with inflation. I also realize the 5 million might not be enough, and 10 or 20 million may be a much better numbers!

What do you think a lot of money is?

-MR

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32 comments »

Posted in Millionaire

Tags: money money changes money keeps outgrowing me

Money Cache 2011 Feb 20: Cloud Busting

February 20th, 2011

Weekly Thoughts:

Another tough week (sickness and work overload), I’ve slipped on both my goals and my blogging activity. One of my favorite hobbies is to read other bloggers practically daily, but this week I barely was able to visit everybody that I ready daily once. I can honestly say that it made me a bit sad.

Next week, the clouds should part letting a bit of light into my previously blah picture! Tuesday, should be my last great effort at work on our current problem (knock on wood), and already I’m starting to get over my head pounding cold!

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

Financial Samurai: Why Not Work Overseas, Make More And Pay Less Taxes! – What an incredible article by guest Sunil @ Extra Money Blog! Reading this article is like sitting in a pitch black room, and then someone yells through a door, “Why don’t you turn on the light”… Read this, you won’t regret it!

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: Our Extra Money – Interesting peek into the way BFS split up her money! It’s interesting to see how others do such splits! Looks good to me…

Barbara Friedberg: ACCOMPLISH MORE BY DOING LESS – I’m guilty of trying to bite too much as once and falling into this trap. Barb offers a wonderful solution!

Invest It Wisely: 10 Innovative Ways You Can Invest in Real Estate – Great article on ways to invest in Real Estate.

Everyday Tips & Thoughts: 7 Tips For Salespeople – If you are a Sales person, this is a great article for you to read! This is exactly how shopper like us think!

Money Cone: Did You Beat The Market, Mr. Investor? – Great analysis of some critical stock measures when you trade in the stock market

Monvesting: Creating Your Finance Corner – Organizing your finances by picking a dedicated spot to perform the financial activities is truly a great step towards being more financially savvy.

Watson, Inc: What Keeps You On Track Financially? – Another great analysis that make you think about your finances. I’ve learned that practically everything Shawn writes is good. I’m sure you’ll find this is the case with this article too.

101 Centavos: Centavos Model Portfolio Update – February 16th, 2011 – I like this update for the razor focus that 101 has on this area of investing. You won’t see these stocks on CNBC (usually). It appears he has made out quite well in that particular area of investing!

First Gen American: Babci is the 7th Born – This is a great story about Babci in Poland, and being the 7th born. In many way, Babci reminds me of my grandmother.

The Ultimate Juggle: Why I Love My Job – Sometimes a great work environment full of joking and cleverness makes the difference between hating a job and loving a job! Read this entertaining story about the “Printer Fairy”, lol.

Free Money Finance: Do You Have an Embarrassing Work Story? – I really enjoy reading some of the comments to this post!

My Favorite Post from MoneyReasons.com for the Week:

While my cold didn’t bring out the best in any of my work this week, I did enjoy Frugal Ways to Save on Shower Costs. I always wondered how much it cost to take a shower at home, and now I know!

Closing Thoughts:

Sometimes you just have to run hard to shake off the stuff that’s slowing you down. So that is what I plan to do about the small obstacles that keep getting in my way! Next week should be a power week for me!

After reading so many great post from the bloggers above, I would like to make an additional point, a bonus to the posts above if you will. Within each great post, many comments left by the readers are fabulous reads too! I enjoyed the reader’s comments about on The Financial Samurai’s post almost as much as I enjoyed the guest post from Sunil!

-MR

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12 comments »

Posted in Weekly Review

Tags: great pf links personal finance links Weekly Review

What You Remember Might Not Be The Original

February 19th, 2011

Back in the year 2009, my kids first viewing of “The Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens was “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” by Disney.

At the time, I knew that having the their first exposure to such a classic novel was wrong somehow, even though it seemed innocent enough. Most of the older neighborhood kids had seen the movie, so I followed the tend and let my kids watch the kidified (yeah, I made that word up) version of the classic by Mr. Dickens. But still what was lost in the translation of the classic still bothers me a little today. Oh not in a big way, but I know it has tainted the original message, feeling and meaning forever for my kids. Whenever the see a version of this classic, they will first think of Mickey Mouse.

When I was a very small child, my parents use to play the song “Scarborough Fair” by Simeon and Garfunkel. I was amazed by the song and I thought the two singers were geniuses. I couldn’t totally understand the words, but I knew the lyrics were a bit magical to me, and I was in awe of them. I often wondered how these two individuals came up with such striking lyrics! I really thought they were something special… But, in this case I was wrong!

You see the lyrics to “Scarborough Fair” and the basic melody has existed a bit before Simon and Garfunkel sung the classic song. In fact, it’s from Medieval times and had various versions of the ballad!

While there is a great chance that I would have never heard the song if it wasn’t sung by Simeon and Garfunkel, I think it’s a bit deceiving letting people believe that they created the ballad. Perhaps they did mention it on the album, and my parents knew and just never told me… But I bet a lot of you didn’t realize this little fact either.

It is a great song, but it wasn’t the original…

I wonder how many more things in life are like this great little song? Remakes of some other great piece of work by others in time? I know the original writers of this song is uncredited and unknown.

This is a simple example, but I wonder how often we miss hearing the original version of such works in its original context?

-MR

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