Blog of the Week: Genius types

This week's blog of the week goes to Brian over at Genius Types.

His post:

The Key to Entrepreneurial Success is Balancing Business and Creativity

Is very well written and thought provoking. It talks about the two different type of entrepreneurs. The creative types - like myself. And the Business-minded types.

I found the different descriptions pretty enlightening. Although I do consider myself pretty creative, I'm not that much of a risk taker at all. I'm fairly focused on doing whatever is least risky - hence my over-whelming fear of debt.


It is a great post. Check it out.

Blog of the Week: Alan Haft

This week's Blog of the Week without question goes to: Alan Haft and his blog post

6 things Star Wars Teaches Us About our Money

The name pretty much says it all. I may be a little bias being a pseudo-Star Wars fan myself but the advice is not only entertaining it makes sense as well. For example:

#1 Start by wiping the slate clean
...

LUKE:
Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally
different.

YODA:
No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.

Lesson Learned: I totally agree with Yoda. After all, who wouldn’t? The creature not only managed to live nine-hundred years, but he beat the pants off an Evil Emperor four times his size.

When it comes to learning a few things about successful investing, the first place many folks should start is not by learning complicated investment formulas that ultimately few wind up remembering, but with a willingness to do what Luke was basically forced to do: unlearn some of the things you perhaps already know.

I guess the part that makes sense for me is the media in general presses upon you certain guideposts of what success is- advertising and the media tell you that success is:

• a leased fancy new car,
  
• a McMansion in the suburbs at 'interest only' rates,
  
• And a platinum credit card that allows you to 'keep the line moving' instead of paying with slow, boring cash.

The reality though is usually a little bit different:

• people with paid-off older cars have more capital to invest because they lack the added expense of a monthly car-note.
  
• A McMansion with interest only rates initially will correct up sharply when interest rates adjust or when it's finally time to bite the bullet and start paying for some principal on your loan - this is all assuming that your McMansion wasn't overvalued in the first place.
• Despite advances in technology, I think cash still pays quicker than credit or debit for that matter and as opposed to being 'slow & boring' cash is still pretty sexy in my opinion especially when you know that cash is yours.
  

As a final side note on paying cash over credit; The myth put out in society that credit is now somehow 'better' than cash, was quickly squashed twice back in Chicago, during my pre-good credit days:

1. I was out on a hot*1st date, didn't have my checking account anywhere near balanced and decided to pay via my shiny 'platinum' card - to show what a big shot I was. I quickly handed the waitress my card, which was approaching the high 4 figure limit but not at it (at least I didn't think so) a few minutes later the waitress came back and said something to the effect of 'I'm sorry sir this card doesn't seem to be working, do you have another form of payment?" I was a little mortified and pulled out my wallet which was completely devoid of cash. I do believe, at this point I pulled out my debit card which I was iffy about already and handed it to the waitress. The conversation between me and my date was quickly getting 'frosty'. A few minutes later the waitress came back and with the same apologetic face said "I'm sorry sir, this card doesn't seem to be working either" I was double-mortified at this point and asked the waitress to run my first card a 2nd time. She agreed and the conversation between me and my date ceased and the embarrassed staring at the wall ensued. Finally, after a few minutes that seemed like hours, the waitress came back with a much cheerier face and said simply "it looks like we were having a problem with our card machine, your card went through". I was somewhat relieved but the damage to my image in my dates eyes was already done as it was obvious that I was close to my limit or else I wouldn't have been sweating bullets like I was. Needless to say there was no 2nd date.
   
2. I was out with the girl I had been dating for a few weeks and I was trying to be 'spontaneous' (since I am a consummate planner) and I 'surprised' her by taking her out to a show and then a fancy dinner at a high end restaurant. The girl wasn't that impressed as she had already seen the show I was surprising her with and she even pretty much told me, she wasn't in the mood for fancy restaurant fair and was more in the mood for something very casual. Anyway, the waiter in this instance was very snobby and could tell by our age and inability to pronounce menu items that we were not as 'refined' as his typical customer. When the bill came, again, I pulled out the 'platinum' card to pay and this jerk-waiter pointed out the likely inability of me being able to pay cash by stating "Credit, I see" in a very condescending tone when he returned to pick up the bill. The card did not get returned this time but, If was able to whip out a $100 bill at the time instead of my 'platinum' credit card and it would have limited the ability of the waiter to continue treating me like the second-class citizen he seemed to think I was. By paying with 'cool' & 'hip' credit it only reinforced his opinion. Needless to say this waiter didn't get a very nice tip but, that respect I thought my platinum card would immediately provide was completely absent.
   

Anyways, Got off track by a bunch there but, definitely check out the article above, funny, entertaining and informative.

*by 'hot' I mean approaching the attractiveness of my current super-hot, dime-piece , sexy girlfriend. I mean honestly, for the record, above 1-date-wonder really pales in comparison.

Blog of the week: Sistah Ant

Blog of the week this week goes to a blog I just recently noticed: Sistah Ant

Her recent blog post 'Watch & learn' talks about how you can learn from some financial bloggers.

I have to say that having a PF blog over time seems to definitely help you learn tips & tricks about finance. It also helps keep you motivated whatever your goal may be because usually other PF Bloggers have either gone through what you're going through, been through worse circumstances than what your going through or have already achieved some financial goals you dismissed as simply wishes.

One example that sticks out in my mind more and more is MM at the old-school PFBlog. One of his first posts was this one back in 2003:

This is a personal journal to track my progress to accumulate enough wealth to retire by 40 (Year 2016).

I start to keep track my personal finance in June 2002 when my net worth was around US$47k. By my current estimate, I need to have a net worth of US$1,000,000 to comfortably retire with my wife back in China (my home country) and experience my other interests. I believe this goal is achievable with hard work, discipline and smart personal finance management.

I plan to analyze my progress at least monthly, and write down day-to-day thinkings about personal finance issues regularly. This should be a good journal for anyone who is interested in accumulating a meaningful moneypile from scratch.

Now it's 4 year's, almost 5 year's later and this is his most recent update :

September is an exciting month to say the least. After the stagnating performance of the general stock market in the last three months, it finally rallied in the month and helped our portfolio to book a monthly gain of 3.7%, a record in itself throughout our systematic tracking of portfolio performance in the last two years.

The result: almost $40,000 addition to our net worth tally, boosting our month-end net worth to $832,745.

It is fair to say that we are now in the 8th inning of our multi-year quest for a seven-figure nest egg since the inception of this blog. After we broke the $400,000 mark at the end of 2005, it took us 8 months to gather the 5th $100,000, 3 months for the 6th, and 5 months each for the 7th and 8th. In other words, we more than doubled our wealth accumulations from our first 30 years of life in two years. If we follow the historical pattern, we will likely be able to finish the game with $1,000,000 in our bag in less than 12 months' time from today.

That's right, in about 5 years he and his wife have grown a Net Worth of $47K to Over $800,00! Making $39,000 last month alone. Just goes to show you what some goals and a lot of elbow grease can do. I'll be watching & learning from multiple blogs such as Sistah Ant's but definitely the PFBlog for at least the year to come.

Blog of the Week: Single Ma

This week's blog of the week goes to Single Ma for her post on Groceries/Food

I can definitely relate to the fact that Groceries and Eating Out always hit my wallet at the most inopportune times.

I am starting to get a little better but, once those last few days till the next pay period come around I tend to run a couple dollars in the red as far as the food budget goes anyway.

I guess it all comes back to keeping an eye out for discounts and trying to stay a little below your food budget rather than above it.

Blog of the Week: Money, Matter, & More musings

This week's blog of the week goes to Money, Matter, & More musings .

The blog about High Yield Savings Accounts keeps everyone in the know about the high interest savings accounts and what they are at now due to the recent Fed rate cut.

Check it out...

Blog of the Week: My Financial Odyssey

Blog of the week for this week goes to TMAC at My Financial Odyssey for his post on the new FICO scoring rules. FICO will officially no longer allow an "authorized user's" credit to be positively affected by the good credit of the card holder.

As a Marketplace.org article pointed out a couple months ago - some people with really bad credit are (or at least were) piggy-backing onto the credit cards of people with really good credit as 'authorized users' in order to boost the former's credit score. In some of the more extreme cases - complete strangers have been selling their 'authorized user' spots to other strangers so that people that would otherwise be turned down for loans but, for the sake of the 'authorized user' boost to the credit score, are approved. For some reason, the sub-prime mortgage crisis comes to mind...

Honorable mentions also go to Mapgirl for her article on Mr. Earl

And I'm sad to say it looks like it may be THE END (at least blog-wise) for Basil & Bianco Bizarro at the Bizarro World Debt Elimination Freak Show hopefully they're just kidding though. If they're not, they'll definitely be missed.

Blog of the week: Zen Personal Finance

The article "Should we feel sorry for these people?" is a great post based on an article about one of those situations that some may be in; the old 'Robbing Peter to Pay Paul' conundrum.

The Moellerings are 39 & 40, make about $66,000 combined.

Together they have a total of:

$22,000 in Credit Card debt (-)

$93,000 in mortgage debt (-)

$68,000 in Home equity line debt (-)

$5,000 in savings (+)

...it doesn't say what their homes current value is but assuming that it's at $100,000 (as they just got married a few years ago) they might have a Net worth around (-$78,000) ouch. The article also touches on the differences in American credit/financial health 20 years ago as opposed to today. It's not pretty.

Blog-of-the-week: for the weeks 8/13 & 8/20

This is a little late due to a much deserved vacation but, here it goes:

The blog of the week for the week of 8/13 would have to go to Mapgirl for her blog "Caveat Lector" which explains in detail why she doesn't really give specific advice to readers on finance. Honestly, unless we specifically state we are finance professionals with a financial planning certificate you should take any advice with a grain of salt. Honestly, even then, do you really want to take free advice from a complete stranger about what to do with your nest egg? I don't & won't - thank you very much. Read up on your own situation and/or contact a professional! (Honorable mention to Basil at Bizarro World for his post on how he is looking more like a Hobo as he pursues debt-freedom - I can definitely relate)

The blog of the week for this past week of 8/20 would go to Money, Matter and More musings - it turns out scientists from OSU (Ohio Love!) have determined that you don't have to be smart to be rich. Well that's a little bit of a relief! So don't ever say you're 'too stupid' to be rich or wealthy - you could be a PhD and broke due to student loans! I actually might know one or three people who are in a situation similar to that now.

Bottom line, you don't need to be a rocket scientist or a member of Mensa to be wealthy. Look at Paris Hilton...OK bad example; look at Dave Thomas.