30
Jun
Posted in Wacky Wednesday by Roger, the Amateur Financier |
Previously, in our Wacky Wednesday series: You attempted to use the power of time travel (combined with compound interest) to become rich. It worked, sort of; you were a billionaire, but even a cup of coffee cost millions of dollars. Inflation having ruined your plan, at which point you decided to travel back to the past, only to discover that it’s impossible to withdraw your money to travel back in time and not invest it. To survive in the future, you end up taking a job as a hamster groomer; it wouldn’t be so bad, if the hamsters weren’t such huge gossips. Finally, you’re able to travel back to your own time; well, actually, the Time Cops caught you, pre-Hitler assassination, and forced you back. What will you try now?
“Alright,” you say to yourself, “this time it’ll work.” You’re just about to rent a time machine again, but this time, you’re going to do it right. Rather than traveling to the unknown future (well, unknown to everyone who didn’t spend several weeks grooming talking hamsters), you’re going to travel to the past, invest some money in companies you know will be profitable, and then come back to the present to sell your stock and live large on the profits you’ve made.
You’ve picked 1960 as your target year; fifty years is a nice, round number, and will give your specially chosen stocks plenty of time to grow. To avoid the problems you had last time, getting stuck in the future and all, you’ve bought the deluxe time travel package; six time jumps included, a total of three round trips. You can have problems twice, and still manage to make your plan work.
You'll be a bit too early for Woodstock, though
You run one last check: list of stocks to buy, life savings (what you have left of it), address of secluded place to land your time machine and address of an old-fashioned brokerage house. Confident that you have everything you need, you travel back in time, heading toward the brokerage. You walk in, confidently asking to speak with a broker, and make your desire to open an account known. The broker seems quite eager to have you as a client, and asks you for your ID to start the paperwork.
You pause, dumbfounded. You realize that your ID won’t even be issued for another several decades; heck, you won’t even be born for a few decades more. There’s no way you can buy stock using your ID without being arrested for fraud or locked up as a lunatic if you decide to share the truth of your time traveling nature. You quickly excuse yourself, running back to the time machine to head back to the future.
STRIKE ONE!
When you’re safely back in 2010, you think of how to get your hands on an ID that will pass muster in the sixties. Forgeries are too expensive, and you don’t know how to get your hands on one, anyway. Then it hits you: your grandfather was a strapping young (well, younger, anyway) lad in 1960, one with a resemblance to you that all your family members keep commenting on; if you can borrow his Social Security Card and other old IDs, you could pass for him, and invest your money in his name.
It takes a minimum of effort to get Gramps to show off his old memorabilia, and just a bit more effort for him to allow you to borrow his old Social Security card and a late fifties dated driver’s license. Convinced you can now buy and sell stocks to your heart’s content, you hop back in the time machine and jam to the past.
You again head to the brokerage house, and get the same broker, albeit a little more reluctant to work with the man who flaked on their last meeting. Still, when you produce your authentic (if more worn than he was expecting) IDs, his mood lightens. He readies the trade, and just asks you to produce the money to cover the purchase.
You smile as you pull the wad of bills out of your wallet and hand it over. You smile disappears when he hands it back to you, frowning and asking whether you think it’s funny to waste his time. Before you have a chance to say anything, he berates you for giving him clearly fake money, the work of a not so clever forger. You don’t ask what he means; looking down at your cash, you realize it’s the re-designed, counterfeit resistant kind that’s been introduced in the past few decades. Even if it didn’t look totally alien, it all has dates of 2000 or later on it, the sort of thing the broker would only see in Science Fiction films. You excuse yourself, and run back to the time machine again.
STRIKE TWO!
You know you’ll only have one more chance at this; you vow to make it work. You rack your brain trying to figure out where you can come up with a sizable amount of pre-1960 cash. Most of the bills that old have been taken out of circulation or are being hoarded in safes somewhere; the coins are collectibles, rare pieces that fetch a high price now but will be nearly worthless back then. As you ponder for a solution, it hits you: gold! Buy some gold now, sell it in the past, and you’ll get 1960′s money without having to steal it from someone in the present!
You go to the nearest pawn shop, and buy as much gold as you can afford. Hiding it until you get back to the time machine (you don’t want to be mugged), you hurry in order to get to the past. One quick time jump, another trip to the pawn shop (this time in 1960) in order to liquidate your shiny treasure, and you’re ready for another meeting with your broker.
By this time, he’s rather perturbed with the whole situation; you’ve bailed on this purchase twice now, and he’s a busy man. But when you produce a sizable amount of time-appropriate bills and lay them down on the table, his mood lightens; he tells you to have a good day, and you leave, convinced you’ve finally accomplished your goal.
You hop in the time machine, heading back to the future as you think of what you’ll do with your money. You didn’t have that much to invest, but you chose companies that will grow at such an incredible pace that your money will double ten times over, at least, a thousand-fold increase when you finally withdraw it. If that’s still not enough, you just have to be sure to keep some seed money to rent another time machine, invest the rest, and end up a millionaire all over again.
You arrive back in the present, and go to the brokerage to check on your ‘Grandfather’s’ account. You’re surprised to hear that it was closed and emptied out decades ago. You hurry to visit your grandfather, catching him as he regales his grandchildren (and a few great grandchildren) with some of his stories. You don’t recall ever hearing this one; he tells of how he discovered one day in the early sixties that a brokerage had made a mistake, putting a few thousand dollars in an account with his name on it. Of course, being the truthful sort he was, he attempted to convince them it was a mistake on their end, but when they insisted it was his, well, what was he supposed to do? He took it out and spent it, of course!
STRIKE THREE! YOU’RE OUT OF HERE!
Slumping along the wall, you realize that all your plans have come to naught, yet again. Still, from the excited way that Grandpa talks about finding that money and what he did with it, you can’t help thinking that perhaps it was worthwhile, after all. Bringing this much happiness to an old man must surely be worth something. Also, if you heard correctly, you thought you caught something about a business he started with the remaining funds…
Will you learn more about Gramp’s business? Does time travel always lead to trouble? Does Roger like to do ongoing stories? (The answer to that last one, by the way, is a resounding yes.) Find out next Wacky Wednesday!
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29
Jun
Posted in Weekly Thoughts by Roger, the Amateur Financier |
It’s been a while since I’ve done a round-up; real life has made it hard to get online enough to update my own blog, let alone spend the time needed to read through, comment on, and link back to some of the other great blogs I try to follow. But, now that I’m getting back into the swing of things, blog-wise, I figured one of my first actions should be to re-start the whole blog round-up habit.
Now, I’ll probably try to go back and check out all the posts I didn’t have a chance to publish in earlier round-ups, possibly even going as far as making some post-dated weekly round-ups just to include all the goodness I see. For now, though, let’s take a look at some of the quality posts from this past week:
Contests
Joe Plemon mentions the GRABBBR contest being run by several Christian-flavored personal finance bloggers. There looks to be $200 in cash and numerous other prizes up for grabs, so it’s definitely worth checking out.
There’s a book giveaway being held by Young and Thrifty for a copy of Your Money Ratios, a book I’ve seen recommended in quite a few places. If I don’t win it (which I intend to do), perhaps one of my readers can.
I wasn’t fast enough to get to Austin (Foreigner’s Finances) contest giving away a copy of Investing Made Simple, but I suppose I’ll mention it at least; apparently you need to really be on top of his blog entries to win his contests.
If you’ve got kids in your life (or just like reading what we, as a society, are trying to teach our kids about money), you can enter to win a copy of Three Cups, currently be put up by J. Money of Budgets are Sexy.
Good Yakezie Posts
Staying Calm Under Pressure – Financial Samurai, always an interesting and entertaining writer, shares a story about his father, and how his father’s calmness and independence handling life has helped to influence his behavior.
The Millionaire Calculator – I love financial calculators and other devices to help you discover your current financial state. Monevator has a good one, letting you know when you’ll become an (inflation-adjusted) millionaire, always something cool to know.
Are Chiropractors Quacks? – I’ll admit, I’m a bit negatively biased toward chiropractors; my uncle was (is) one, and he didn’t treat my aunt (my mother’s little sister) very well. But Mrs. Money provides a pretty fair and honest view of the profession overall.
I heart Warren Buffett – Buffett is the classic example of both buy-and-hold investing AND living well below your means. If that’s not enough reason to heart him, Young and Thrifty provides more Buffett Factoids to inspire your love.
Does Income Change Who You Are As A Person? Or Your Tastes? – A good question for all of those who are upwardly mobile to ask. Evan of My Journey To Millions asks due to his own feeling that his lifestyle is inflating around him.
How to Control Emotional Spending – Mixing money and emotions frequently results in decreasing the amount of said money. Money Funk provides a pretty good list of ways to help decrease the effect your emotions will have on your spending.
Take Action Tuesday: Automatic Investments - It’s something we know we all should do, but precious few of us end up following through. Daniel of Sweating the Big Stuff provides a quick and easy guide to setting up your automatic investments so you can ‘pay yourself first’.
Where The Amateur Financier Was Featured Last Week
My post about my Deep Thoughts on Tipping was included in the Yakezie Carnival Round Up by Young and Thrifty. I do so enjoy hearing good things from my fellow Yakezie.
Speaking of Yakezie, and my post on tipping, Joe Plemon mentions it in his very sweet Father’s Day Round-Up post. That card from his children is just adorable.
My post on Building Up Your Bull**** Detector was considered one of the Best On The Web by Cheapskate Sandy. Pretty good, considering her BS detector is already running at full throttle (being a native New Yorker and all).
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28
Jun
Posted in rant by Roger, the Amateur Financier |
I’ve now been working at Wal-Mart (or as a disturbing number of relatives, friends and passers-by insist on calling it, Wally World) for a little over a month. I’ve gotten the basics of the job down pretty well, and have been working hard, even if the job is far from what I expected to be doing with my life at this point.
As I’ve gone about my daily work, I’ve noticed many things that, well, just plain annoy me. So I’ve decidedthat the best way to change some of this behavior, is to note it in my blog. What follows thenis a list of do’s and don’ts for Wal-Mart and other retail store shoppers.
DO Ask for Help When Necessary: The people working at Wal-Mart or other stores are there to help. I obviously can’t speak for every single retail worker in the country, but the ones I have met, are generally eager to help customers whenever possible.
DON’T Interrupt Other Work: That said, there are times when I and other Wal-Mart workers will be occupied with other tasks that require our attention (such as stocking high shelves with heavy objects). If you require assistance during those times, please just wait for a moment or two while we finish doing what we were doing (or at least have set down anything we might drop on our own or someone else’s head), and then we’ll be glad to help you.
DO Ask If There Is More Of A Product In The Back: Try as we might, we can’t refill the shelves as fast as you, the customers, can deplete our stock; you simply have too much of a numerical advantage for us to win that game. (Especially when there is only one person assigned to refill the shelves in a particular section, a situation in which I frequently find myself.) If you ask (preferably politely), we can go into our store room, look through the products we have, and perhaps provide you with what you need.
DON’T Get Angry If We’re Completely Out Of Stock: Our backroom, alas, is not a magical tesseract that connects us to the production floors for all our items, effectively giving us an infinite amount of any item you want. Sometimes, we’re just plain out of something. In those cases, getting angry with the low level worker (such as myself) that you’ve encountered on the sales floor will do no good. If you really need to acquire the item, the best chance you’ll have is to go to customer service desk and get a rain check.
DO Feel Free To Ask When The Next Shipment Will Arrive: If you do opt to get a rain check, or simply want to come back when we have more of the product in stock, you can ask when the next truck carrying that product will be arriving. It might take a little digging, but we can usually find that information out easily enough. (Just bear in mind that the time when the shipment arrives and when we are able to get the product out on the shelves for you to buy might be several hours apart, especially when, as mentioned, there’s few people doing the stocking of the shelves.)
DON’T Ask For Products To Be Put Aside For You: Generally, the rank and file (and frequently the managers) in a large retail store have no power to put aside items in the back for your future purchase. Besides the fact that we can hardly guarantee that the products won’t go out on the shelves the moment we leave the store, you can hardly expect us to hold products for customers who may or may not follow through on their promise to buy it in the future. You’re not completely out of luck, though; you can have products set aside in some cases (usually at stores that still offer layaway) or get a rain check that will enable you to purchase the item at the desired price when you want to in the future. Either of those methods will have more success (and get the employee in less trouble) than asking someone to put aside a product for you under the table.
DO Ask About Any Specials: Employees can direct you to any possible savings in the store, showing you where the discounted products are kept or letting you know about any pending sales. There might be ways to save money that you didn’t know about, which the employees can clue you in on. Not everything will be on sale, though, which brings us to our next point…
DON’T Try To Pressure Employees Into Giving You A Discount: The average retail store worker has no incentive to overcharge you on your groceries or other goods; you’ll be able to pay the listed price on everything you purchase. Trying to get the cashiers to give you an ‘employee discount’ or otherwise decrease your bill will not only annoy the cashier, but can lead to a big scene. (If the employee does take advantage of their employee discount or otherwise illicitly decreases your bill, they’ll likely face disciplinary action and possible job loss; hence, the number of employees who’ll acquiesce to your desires is fairly small.)
DO Be Courteous: Remember that the people working at Wal-Mart or other retail stores are just like you: hard-working, capable and eager to help. Treat them with the same level of courtesy you would treat those in your everyday life. If you treat them well, they will do the same for you.
DON’T Be A Jerk: This should fall under ‘being courteous’, but it deserves its own mention. There are times when things will go wrong on your shopping trip: the store is out of one of the items on your list, a sale expires, or you simply can’t find what you want to buy. Taking out your aggression on the employees will do nothing to improve your shopping experience, and only make that employee much less likely to want to help you in the future. Treat store employees as you’d want to be treated, and everyone will be much happier.
There you are, several tips on how to behave at retail outlets, from someone who’s spent more of his past month there than he ever intended. Enjoy your next shopping trip!
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25
Jun
Posted in 5 Simple Rules by Roger, the Amateur Financier |
Alright, we’re at the end of the week, and also the end of our list of simple rules. As usual, I’ve saved the most important rule for last. Always, no matter how you are doing financially, you need to remember to
Be Sure to Give Back
More than anything else we’ve covered this week, giving to charity will help not only you, but also your community. You can help to improve the lives of those around you, and feel good doing it. Of course, you can’t simply give to everyone who asks; besides the fact that there is a limitless amount of charities that want money, there are (unfortunately) plenty of dishonest people out there who would take advantage of your generosity. To be sure that your charity goes to those who most need it, here’s a few tips:
1) Check That The Charity is Legitimate: There’s more than a few ‘charities’ out there that are ineffective, at best, and downright deceitful at worst. Luckily, you can usually protect yourself and ensure that your money goes to worthy charities with a little preliminary research. I detailed some of the research I do when looking into a charity in my Choosing Charities series, and you should, before you hand over any of your hard earned money, be sure to put in some due diligence in order to ensure that the charity is on the up and up.
2) Don’t Overlook Local Charities: As the many stories, movies and video games can a test, it’s frequently easier to focus on the big fish rather than the individuals who surround you, even if it’s the latter group who actually make everything happen. In the same way, there’s the temptation to focus on only the big charities with large advertising budgets and/or high name recognition. There are plenty of smaller, more local charities that could use your help, from the local food bank to a nearby homeless shelter, where your money could do a great deal of good for your neighbors and friends, all in short order.
3) Don’t Leave Yourself in Poor Financial Shape In Order to Donate: Unfortunately, as with so many things in life, giving money to charity entails a trade-off: every dollar you donate is one dollar less you have for your own savings, investments, and spending. Obviously, I can’t give any hard and fast answers about whether you should or shouldn’t give to charity and under which conditions to make each choice; those are highly personal things, which will depend on everything from your personal financial situation to your religion and moral compass. I just want to point out that if doing so will put your other personal money goals at risk, maybe you shouldn’t give money and instead…
4) Consider Donating Time: If you are short of money (and who of us isn’t these days?), that doesn’t mean you can’t make a worthwhile contribution to a charitable cause. If you have time, you can always volunteer to help those less fortunate than you. Work in a soup kitchen, help out your church, even give to a blood drive the next time you have the opportunity; all of these (amongst many other options) are ways to improve the lives of those around you without needing to break out the check book or dig through your pocket for loose change. If you have skills that could benefit a non-profit or other charitable group, from marketing (even charities need to spread the word) to managing the money that comes in from other donors, volunteering your time will help the group to save money and be able to better focus on its charitable goals.
5) Work on Spreading the Word: While we’re on the subject of spreading the word, that raises another option for you when it comes to helping charities: pass on news and your interest in the charities to help draw others to the causes you support. Letting your friends and family know about the types of charities you choose to support, your reasons why, and what they can do to help can be an excellent way to increase the support that your chosen charity receives, as well as getting your loved ones more interested in the causes you support.
It can also backfire, though, and both annoy your loved ones and decrease the chance that they will help your charity. It’s a fine line to walk, and you need to be careful and not make it seem like you’re going to turn into a pushy telemarketer on them; just bring up your interests when an opening presents, and follow up or let the subject drop according to your loved ones’ response and interest level.
6) Just Do It: Sorry to rely on quoting a Nike commercial, but it is good advice (at least, in this circumstance): giving back is good. You’ll help to improve the lives of others, make the world a better place to live (if only by a tiny little bit) and feel pretty good about yourself. While I again caution you not to donate so much that you jeopardize your own financial situation, if you are able to give something, anything, really, it can go to improve the lives of others who are less fortunate. And that is an amazing feeling.
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