First off...I love football. I am not a big pro sports guy, but I enjoy all levels of football. From little kids playing Pop Warner, to High School, College and the Pro's, for me there is no better drama in sports.
Even though I am no Green Bay Packer fan (Go Cowboys!) I can't help trying seeing parallels in our own career path that we need to understand.
For those not following the story; basically Brett Favre, a future Hall-of-Fame Quarterback for Green Bay (GB), decided to retire at the end of last season. It was a shock, given that the team well over achieved expectations. It wasn't a shock though that it was coming. A 15 year veteran, he had hinted at it for two years. Brett retires, team moves on, new QB, other personnel changes...then Brett decides he made a hasty rash decision and he wants to come back...(cue record scratch sound). Team says we have moved on, Brett say fine trade me to this team. GB says nope, they are our rival and it would hurt our fan base, but you are under contract so we control that move.
It gets worse from there, now there are rough feeling etc.. It isn't resolved as of this writing, but probably will be this week.
So...how does this ties to personal finance and career advise?:
Its a sad story for a sports hero, team and fans to learn that even the best, eventually, are displaced. But it is a lesson we all should know too.
The smell of firecrackers are gone, and the first whiffs of "Back to School" are in the air. The month that was is, is was and will be is now! (say that 3 times fast!). Great month even with the Evil Ninja fair popping up and spending too much there, we still did pretty darn well with an increase of $2, 093 to our Net Worth!
Highlights:
Points to Work on:
Goals:
Baby Steps:
That's it!
Quick post today.
I have noticed something interesting since I have been back writing the Blog. The more I post and write, the lower the subscriber list goes!
It made me think about how we all react to availability.
Question: What is generally the best Rated Episodes of a TV series...Answer: The Premiere and the Finale! It is probably the reason people used to really like mini-series!
Not that I will stop posting just to get my numbers up, but it was just an interesting observation (at least to me!).
Back in January I posted about a car that was announced by Tata Motors. The Nano was to smash price barriers for the third world and sell for less than $2500.
Well Tata, which recently bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford, is having a tough time hitting the price point given the commodity price increase over the last 6 months.
Today in BusinessWeek they spotlighted the status of the little wonder and some of their prospective customers, especially in India. Based on the taxes and other initial expenses the car won't be quite as cheap as hoped. A good used car, with AC can be had for about $3000 (and if you have been to India, you'll recommend the AC!).
Will the Nano be as successful as its iPod namesake? Who knows, but I remember when dealer in the US were all worried be a car out of Eastern Europe...the Yugo!
I plan to be the first blogger in space. It would only be for 2 1/2 hours and 5 mins weightless, but it officially counts as space travel for the (very wealthy) everyman. Virgin Galactic can make that a real possibility.
OK, so I am $199,990 short on the ticket price (I have $10 left over from my allowance) and they have already per-sold 250 out of the first years 500 seats, but it still leaves 250 more :) Plus I'd like to go when all of the kinks are worked out!
OK, so personal finance would be out the window, but I am from that first generation of kids that had astronauts as hero's. I was just six-months old when Neil Armstrong made that "Giant Leap for Mankind," 8-yrs old when Star Wars came out not to mention in my teens when I realized it probably wasn't gonna happen in my lifetime, Buck Rogers or not. This really is stuff of dreams
Just a few years ago Burt Rutan changed all that. His PRIVATE company designed a ship that went into space, safely returned and collected the X-Prize. The X-Prize was a $1 Million prize to the first that could pull it off. While he spent well more than that to do it (Paul Allen of Microsoft fame was a key investor) the prize lit a spark under a great group of businessmen that went for it.
Richard Branson of Virgin fame, saw the excitement and quickly made a deal with Burt to turn his design into the first affordable space excursion available to man. Before this some very rich folk had bought $10 Million rides to the space station, but Virgin is taking it to a whole other dimension.
In the first year alone, as I said, Virgin hopes to fly 500 people into space. To put that into perspective, that is nearly equal to ALL of the people that have EVER gone into space. Pretty amazing.
Look, I get that this is a horrible investment. However it isn't dis-similar to wanting to climb Mount Everest or take a Submarine to see the Titanic. In fact the price will come down in time and with increased competition.
Anyway this is the sort of thing that is neat to at least highlight. Remember it is a curse and a blessing to say, "May you live in interesting times!"
Who's with me! Moon or Bust :)
The title is how I have always seen gasoline pump prices go. It seems like when oil goes up $1 barrel, gas will jump that day. Forget the logic that says, there is no way oil got from the Oil Derrick, to the refinery and to the gas station to be pumped into my car in Southern Oregon the next day.
However, the second part of the statement is true also. The day prices go down, do the pump prices? Nope. It can take days or weeks to fall. The talking heads (the PR people, not the band) will tell you, "OH, it takes time to filter through..."
I have to say though, this time feels different. Maybe this is due to demand actually falling this time and the oil companies trying to stoke usage. Summer is their traditional big demand month and yet in June demand was 5.2% off!
According to this article prices are going to dip up to 25 cents more by Labor Day. Cannot come to soon. Energy has been a key driver (along with cheap money) of inflation. Perhaps we can escape the "Pit and the Pendulum" one more time!
Are the prices coming down where you are as well?
It has been a staggeringly busy week as I have four projects all coming to a head, perhaps making my head implode at a date TBD.
That being said, plenty o' great stuff on others sites and given that all is TV today are Dawson's Creek Reruns (on four channels???) it shows me I have no more excuses to not post today! :)
Here are the Best of the Week:
Favorite Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money Post:
Well, that's it! Almost end of the month so I am beginning work on my month end report. So far, so good!
In a recent article on Yahoo Games I read about how certain components in Sony's PS2/3 and other electronics devices directly led to a rare metal becoming scarce and driving third world dictatorships, like the Congo, to use Slave and child labor to mine the material.
I had never heard of the metal before, but apparently when the PS2 was really in demand Sony was having a hard time getting enough of an "unrefined metallic ore, coltan." After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum. Still have never heard of it, but apparently demand drove the price of this stuff from $49/pound to over $250! You know how the dictators like their money, so "Leave the Blood Diamonds, and mine the Blood Diamond Pokemon!"
I am not trying to draw a conclusion here about video games at all. My real point is how much we have in the civilized world, and how much we take for granted. How many other product issues out their like this where a popular product (which could never be afforded there BTW!) Are being built at the expense of others...I have inspected factories in China, I will tell you...lots!
I often wondered what a person must think about people far away that spend more then they may ever make on...plastic! That they paint or process everyday!
To sum it all up, it is easy to focus on the hardships we can have here (see yesterday's post!). But for the most part our toughest day is way better than most ever achieve!
Take advantage of this bounty!
OK, so I have talked about living in the modern Office before, but this is getting out of hand.
In our move to be more employee friendly we have had a series of Human Resource (HR) initiatives. these have been from the slightly odd to the down-right scary. The sad thing is that I am sure it comes from a place of best hope and wishes...OK I know better than that. It comes from internal surveys that measure employee satisfaction.
About 6 months ago we received the results of our Employee Satisfaction survey and, big surprise, it was low...really low. So low that we had to do something.
First blame HR. Check. Second ignore the horrible raises and oppressive time lines. Double check. Third, get some slogans. Triple check! Fine, then the beatings will continue until the moral improves.
So here are some of the "improvements" that have been made recently:
Anywho, I am sure that if I whine about it I'll just end up a, wet-blanket-alumni! Can't wait until the next survey. I am going to ask for a Pony, and hope for an Ice machine!
Back in my post on July 9th I said it felt like the oil bubble was about to burst. Of course the day after I wrote it oil went up...To nearly $150. But a funny thing then happened, it slipped. No problem said the investors, "Its a temporary shelf price due to goblety-goob."
This ignored the gravity (pun intended) of the rest of the news. Demand is down, way down. In fact for the first time year over year gas usage in the US looks like it will contract. All it takes is a very small pinhole for a giant to blow-out or completely leak out.
I am not saying the $2 gas will be here by Christmas, but maybe $100/barrel oil...The oil producers got this. No one believed that the intrinsic value of the Texas Tea was anywhere near $150/barrel. The didn't think it was $20 either, the pendulum swings both ways...usually to far.
So unless Capt Crazy in Iran, or Major Mayhem in Venezuela pull off a Joker-level whackness act, I gotta believe the price support isn't there. If so it is going to be a big help to US families.
However, I AM the Madame Cleo of Oil predictions so I'll say $100/barrel before Christmas. It probably won't stay there, but it will touch it.
So let it be written...
ps - Like the "real" Madame Cleo I am a complete fake... :)
BusinessWeek had a great article story about how small, local, coffee houses were competing with Starbucks. And not just surviving, but thriving. While Starbucks is its own worst enemy (although they are at least taking the right steps to right the ship) in a lot of areas, including here in Southern Oregon, they are getting their butt handed to them by local, or regional chain.
So how do you compete with a behemoth?
This applies to any business. If you say you can't compete, you can't. You won't buy better then them no matter how hard you whine, so work hard, work around them, and know your business and I guarantee success!
Great article in USA Today about Jay Leno. The Tonight Show host is in the midst of a changing of the guard of the Late Night Hosts. Conan is set to replace Jay as early as next Summer as the Host ad Jimmy Fallon, of SNL fame is replacing Conan.
The fact the NBC would replace its host, who is still far and away the ratings leader (although I still prefer Letterman - Sorry Jay) shows how scared NBC was to lose Conan to another network. My gut is that, as Jay said in the article, he won't have a hard time finding a gig with either Fox or ABC.
So what's this have to do with personal finance?
Mixed in with the story you get some great tips from a guy with a lot of money:
Anyway I came away from the article a bigger fan of Jay's, not to mention I think that there are some great lessons for all of us here. That being said, if Jay wants me to drive any of those cars, you know just to keep them running, I am in :)
Another Week has come and past and I am the biggest fool at last!
OK not really, but I have been running around so much lately that i haven't really had time to spend with the kids. Well this weekend we are doing a bit more. Easy to forget that they grow up sooo fast!
We went to see Batman yesterday and today, the fair (all budgeted and saved for BTW!). The kids are excited since we really didn't get to have a real vacation this year. We all really enjoyed the movie, but a warning that it is dark. Other then the guy dressed up like a bat, it could have been a Scorsese crime drama. Really good. Joker steals the movie big time, making Heath's death all the sadder, this movie would have taken his career to the next level.
On to happier things, the Best of my Favorite Blogs:
Our Top Post this week was due to a challenge by Mrs Micah:
A couple milestones passed earlier that I failed to call out but there are pretty darn impressive to me, as, like I have said, I am always appreciative that anyone comes here to read this blog:
Thanks again for all the support and I look forward to the next 14,000!
Oil has continued to slide in recent days and is back down to the $136 level today. It seemed just two weeks ago the it was going to be "$150 or Bust."
I know for us and across the internet I see more and more tlking obut how they have had to cut back, how small town especially are getting decimated, and how Congress is being beat up up pretty badly for letting this gett so out of control.
Could this be the, not the end of historically high oil/gas price. Not so sure, but to rip off Churchill...I hope it is at least the End of the Beginning!
If this has been an investor bubble, which I believe, oil would over-correct ala the houseing market. Regardless it is going to be a wild ride as no political office holder want to be running with $5 Gas hanging over their heads.
It is going to get interesting...
OK I am secretly obsessed with World of Warcraft (I guess not so secret now...doh!).
If you don't know anything about World of Warcraft (WOW to us!), it is the most successful Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO). Over 10 million people pay each month to play, interact, and have fun.
I started playing in October of 2005, and you might think, what the heck does this have to do with Personal Finance??
Well I hate to say it, but my favorite part of the game isn't the leveling, Battlegrounds or Arenas. It isn't the great people you meet, even that is a close second...nope I really enjoy the player economy.
There is a robust auction system for buying the things that you win or receive in the game. Get a weapon you can't use? expose it to the rest of the server that might be looking for that item! You get money, they get the item they need...Adam Smith is pleased :)
But there are a small group of us players that like to basically day-trade. If you put something up that we feel has a higher value we buy it and flip it. When I was really working on it at one point I had 3% of all trade involving me!
From this I have learned the following:
The point is whatever your hobbies are, you can use these lessons in your personal finance life!
Have a great weekend!
There's a bit of freedom knowing no one will probably read this. I have been away for quite a bit. Anyone that read before, thanks for coming back and stumbling across some more ramblings.
Have taken the last few weeks to try and really focus on one thing at a time. Now being back to getting all of my finances in order I noticed something odd...
During the two months off from the blog I didn't fall off the horse. Sure I could have probably done better, but no real catastrophe! It seems the systems I had in place worked. I never used a credit card, minimal use of debit card, and used cash for all of my cash plan items.
My Net Worth Improved about$3500 and I was able not to dip into the Emergency Fund even though we had some car repairs to pay for. I am sure that their are some ninja bills out there, but I feel like even if they come up I'll be prepared.
So the mountain...ah the over-thought metaphor of the night...Personal Finance and reaching your goals really is similar to climbing a mountain. Often you cannot see the top, you'll get discouraged, but if you work your system, even if you fall...it is just to the base camp not all the way down!
Enough about me! How have your personal finance goals been going? We are at the 6-month mark for the year, days getting shorter again. Are you closer or farther away from hitting the next base camp?
All the best in your Journey!
One of the things that I know about myself is that I tend to run at 110% percent and then get burnt out on something. It isn't enough to get my finances in shape, I have to do it right now. I can't enjoy blogging without writing 3-posts a day and 20+ comments. I can't eat a basket of shrimp at Sizzler's...It has to be a gluttony battle with my brother on baskets killed. Kind of an all or nothing sort of mentality.
This is not unlike Moby Dick...I know you think that I am nuts, but it is a story of someone that loses the forest for the trees. He can't just hunt whales, but has to go after the Godzilla of a whale that crushed his boat and ate his leg...maybe with Tarter Sauce just to be extra mean.
I often feel the same way. I know that I MUST do X, Y and/or Z, but against my better judgement I try to do all of them and end up not getting any of them.
This was drilled home as a child. "Be anything you want, just be the best at it." Now, I am not some Freudian who blames their parents for their failures on the absence of Twinkies in my take-to -school lunch, and on the surface it is a pretty benign comment. The kind all parents, including me when I am channeling my mother, bring to the next generation.
On the other hand I have achieve a little measure of success due to this as well. i wouldn't be where I am at career-wise if i didn't push. But it is the extreme version of this that can be damaging.
Reading the blathering above..."what is the point", may come to mind.
The point is that it is OK to push yourself in anything including personal finance...just don't sink your boat and get your leg bitten off!
OK now that I am back I need to get caught up! Both in terms of where I am financially and my goals. Back to Personal Finance 101.
After a series of Unfortunate Events (Taxes, Computer, Bonus, Ninja Bills) I have real been too passive with my personal finances. So with this weekend being my Anniversary I am going to take a few days (Friday-Tuesday) and do the following:
Also really need to get my short, medium and long term goals back in focus...feel like I have been treading a bit of water for a while.
Sarting was tough...restarting is tougher!
