Archive for June, 2011

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The Spendthrift Friend Who Thought She Was Frugal

June 9th, 2011

Last week, I was talking to a friend on the phone about finances and I decided to pay her a compliment, telling her that I could tell that she really started cutting back on her spending and that she has a finer control over her finances.

In her past she has overdrawn her checking account so badly, that at one time she bounced around 10 check during one time interval.  The kicker was that she had overdrawn her check account before…  So if the bank charges $20 per each bounced check, that comes to $200 in banking fees.  Ouch!

During our conversation, she told me “Well, I’ve always been frugal”.  I couldn’t believe that statement!  She travels overseas every other year, always had leased newer large SUVs, every years goes skiing multiple times, and goes on out-of-state beach vacations at least twice a year.

The credit card balances were so high, that at her low point she actually cut up all of her credit cards except one.  The one card she took and froze it in a small chunk of ice and kept it in the freezer for emergencies.

And now my friend is saying that she is “Frugal“?  Doesn’t make sense huh!

That when I realized that the “Being Frugal” concept is the same as “Being Rich” concept in that it’s all relative!  Her family (especially her brother) spends a lot of money and even spends more than she does.  So while I think she spends way too much when she doesn’t have a strong enough income to support her spending, she see her brother’s level of spending and thinks that she is frugal.

What she doesn’t really take into account is that he’s a small business owner and probably has a positive cash flow.

So perhaps a better gauge of whether you are frugal or not would be your savings delta?  But even that number doesn’t really say if you are frugal or not.  You don’t have to be getting rich to be frugal.  At least this number would tell you if you have a positive cash flow or not.

In the end, frugality (much like being rich) is relative to your peer group.  This enables people who have a  spending problems to believe that they are living a frugal life, but when compared to the averages they aren’t.

Do you have any friends that believe they are being frugal but are in massive debt to the credit card companies?

Cheers,

MR

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Posted in Frugality

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Are We Really Using All Of Our Collective Brainpower?

June 8th, 2011

Say you have 2 rooms, Room A and Room B .

In Room A, you have 1,000 people and the two smartest individuals (based on job, test scores, etc) are chosen to be the problems solvers and inventors (designated by test scores).  The rest of the group watchs TV or even sleeps.

In Room B, you have 1,000 people , but all 1,000 to be potential problems solvers and inventors.  At specific time intervals (maybe ever Friday), all individuals are to write an idea proposal that will be presented to the group, and then will be voted on whether it should be considered for implementation.

Which Room do you suppose would be the most productive?  I believe that most (if not all) countries follow the Room B approach.

IMHO, the problem is that we aren’t really using our brainpower potential to its fullest.  I think if everybody started thinking of ideas instead of wasting so much time watching TV, many problems might be solved.

The reasons why most people are not in Room B are:

  • The complexities of the legal system.  Nobody wants to think of great ideas only to have them stolen by other members that know how to create patents and can secure financing.
  • We are not trained that way.  From childhood we are taught to be followers.
  • Lack of desire to learn.  Just learning to learn doesn’t work for everybody.  But if students are shown how what they are learning works in real life or can be used to problem solve or invent things, perhaps kids would want to learn.
  • Financing.  Creating prototypes cost money.
  • Self Confidence.  This is really a combination of all the above mentioned bullet points.

I wonder what the world would be like if we all did try solve problems?

Look at Benjamin Franklin, he didn’t start inventing things until he was rich and retired at the age of 43.  Until that point, his primary goal was running his newspaper business and becoming wealthy.  Could you imagine what incredible inventions could be in existence if he started seriously inventing things starting in his 20s?

Can you imagine what a radically different world we would live in if we all did use our brainpower to problem solve and invent a few things?  Which room do you think you are  currently in as work, Room A or Room B?

MR

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Posted in Beliefs

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Enhancing My Local Community, If I Were Rich

June 7th, 2011

I wrote about If I Were Rich Today! almost a year ago, and while the post is still true today, my thoughts about the effects of being personally rich would affect my community.

If I were rich today, I would try to make a larger impact within my community.  Not necessarily for fame, but to make it better for all of my neighbors and the community in general.

One of the main things that I would do is create funds to help certain areas in the local community where I live.  But the funds would be different in that the principal would not be touched.  Instead just the interest and dividends would be used to help certain programs and goals.  That way, the funds would get bigger each year as other community members contributed to the principle base through an annual fund-raiser.  Of course I would seed such fund with the initial investment of monies!  I would have such funds for such things like school sports and special programs offered as classes (perhaps an aviation class would be nice). 

I would also put more time in getting to know the other contributors in my local community.   Perhaps even creating a special group to try to think about community problems and opportunities.  I believe such a group could enhance the entire community in general, and create some great programs to make the place a better all around.

All of the community enhancements and community funds would be possible if I were rich!  Being rich would give me the resources to contribute back to my local community (and perhaps even some of the surrounding communities if I were rich enough). 

Being rich would enable me to have a level of freedom that I cannot fully understand currently.  It would be a world where I wouldn’t have to work for money anymore, because my money would be working for me.  This in turn would mean that I could help others in my local community by enabling me to provide more time focusing on current problems and opportunities within the community.

How would you help your community if you were rich?

MR

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Posted in Wealth

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Backyard Camping At Home On The Cheap

June 6th, 2011

My son loves the idea of camping!

That said, we have a packed daily schedule that really won’t enable us to go to a real camp site for quite a while, so instead we decided to have a camping experience at home.

While camping in itself isn’t really expensive, camping at home is even cheaper and almost as fun!

We started the evening by firing up a fire using firewood bought from a store in our backyard portable fire pit.  Next we got out our old camp pie makers and created some pizza pies (a favorite at our house), but you could also create other pies such as apple, cherry, etc.  That’s when we encountered a small problem with our fire!

Fire Problem:

I really needed to start the campfire an hour before we started cooking.  To have a great campfire, it’s good to have red glowing embers.  I started the wood burning, and then had the kids try to cook their pizza pies over the new still burning wood.

We were still able to cook the pies, but it took a long time and would have been much better if they embers were glowing.  marshmallows would have been okay at this point, but not pizza pies.  All told, we cooked pizza pies, hotdogs and marshmallows at our at home camp out.  We even sung a few campfire songs (softly since our neighbors live close by).

My son had a friend over, and they put together the tent while the campfires was burning itself out.  It was fun watching them try to put the tent together.  It took them a good bit of time longer than it for me, but it was fun watching them figure out the “putting the tent up” puzzle.

They decided to put the tent up on our deck, so the next step was to get additional blankets to form a cushioned pad so the deck planks weren’t so hard.  Next came the board games, which included “Trouble”, “Battleship and a checkered board that I assume was to be used to play chess or checkers. My wife, daughter and I went inside.  At this point our camping experience was done (my wife hates to camp) since my wife and I had to go to work tomorrow.  We left a screened window open so we could hear if there were any problems though!

All told, the entire experience cost us less than $10 since we had all of the equipment beforehand.  I’m sure my son will be happy now that he has camped out with a friend, and we are still able to maintain our hectic, sports packed schedule.

Happy backyard camping!

MR

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Posted in Entertainment

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MR Cache: Another Soccer Victory, But Also a Sad Day

June 5th, 2011

Weekly Thoughts

The team I’m coaching had another victory today, but at a cost.  The other girls team had one or two girl who kept tripping our girls from behind!  My daughter was tripped and even had her hand stepped on.  I was fuming as I had to carry her off the field.  Then another one of my girls was tripped from behind and she didn’t even have possession of the ball!  WTF?

The coach for the other team actually teaches soccer, but I didn’t see him do anything!  Luckily for him it was near the end of the game, because I started getting loud, I might have even swore in angry and complaining about the tripping very loudly.  Probably if it continued, I would have to go over and talk to him during the game.  It’s not acceptable that the team he is coaching is tripping from behind like that!

All told, 4 different girls on my team got tripped that day, more than any from all the other teams combined.  I’m still pissed off!  What an A-hole of a coach!  I’m half temped to start attending his other game and see if his girls trip other girls from other teams too, and if so, start calling the other coaches and the soccer commissioner to get him removed (if that’s possible).  I don’t think I could handle any of my girls getting hurt badly because of such conduct from a poorly taught team.

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Conclusion:

The girls that I’m coaching are amazing!  Each one puts their heart into the game, and I’ve very touched.  But at the same time, I worry about each one of them out there.  I would have to see any one of the girls (my girls) get hurt.

I need to step up my game and start teaching them stuff I don’t know.  The best way to do that is to learn how to do it myself.  Luckily youtube videos help, but I still have to learn how to do that actual moves though.

It’s time to step up my game and become a real soccer coach.

Hope you weekend was great,

MR

11 comments »

Posted in Weekly Review

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