Archives for September 2012

I am the Very Model of a Modern Budding Billionaire

September 7, 2012

 

With apologies to Gilbert, Sullivan, and anyone else who’s ever done a parody of this fruity song

 

I am the very model of a modern budding millionaire

I’d rather look for opportunities than wallow in despair

I’ve never fallen victim to some technical analysis

Nor have I failed to execute, resulting in paralysis

My wealth is less connected to my natural abilities

Than to buying assets and to selling liabilities

I put in place a mechanism sure to make my net worth large

Instead of cursing God, my job, the darkness and the man in charge

 

I don’t obsess with shaving pennies into fragments minuscule

Nor spending hours clipping coupons like that Simple Dollar fool

Franklin said that “Time is money”, something few folks know nor care

I am the very model of a modern budding billionaire

 

Before I chose a college, I determined where I’d be years hence:

Implementing my degree, or serving food to dames and gents?

Instead I learned a trade and started earning from an early age

While others still have student loans, and barely make a living wage

“Education isn’t optional, it’s vital in the marketplace.”

Tell that to all the 30-somethings renting modest living space.

You studied English, incurred debt, made failure inescapable

Yet thought you’re smart! The irony is stark. You’re quite incapable.

 

I wasn’t always building wealth. My VISA had a balance thence

Of $13,700.47.

I forwent spending, paid it off, and only then came up for air

I am the very model of a modern budding billionaire

 

 

I got approved to buy a house, a modest little bungalow

Found renters to pay all the bills, enriching me and my cash flow

Kept them living in it, bought a 2nd since the price was low

And did it through an LLC, thus lowering the tax I owe.

I’d rather spend my money on investments that’ll let it grow

Than squander on extravagances bought and financed just for show

You drive a Benz with diamond rims? You must be rich, or want it so

I’ll ask the guy who sold it to you. After all, I think he’d know.

 

Leave money on the table? That’s the quickest way to poverty.

(It’s right there on p. 70, the final words in Chapter III.)

I borrow to invest, and not to finance castles in the air

I am the very model of a modern budding billionaire.

Filed Under: Healthy Living Tagged With: , , , ,

In Case You Missed It

September 5, 2012

 

We couldn’t decide between 2 captions this week:
a) She never took a toothbrush on tour, and things worked out just fine.
b) Who says British women are unattractive?

 

An unscheduled feature in which we fill you in on what’s happening with other personal finance blogs. Because after all, Control Your Cash doesn’t have a monopoly on good advice:

Bible Money Matters

The author is going to a blog conference this week. Because he writes his blog for other bloggers, rather than a general audience, it’s filled with minutiae of interest only to that tiny little subgroup. Imagine how much more popular Bill Simmons would be if he wrote about paragraph spacing and interview techniques in every column. Guess we’ll never find out.

That’s actually not fair. And we strive to be fair. Bible Money Matters has handy tips for anyone traveling to any kind of conference. Or traveling, period. Or leaving the house:

Photo ID: Planning on getting drinks at the conference after party, or flying? You’ll need a photo ID of some sort.

Bet you thought tooth decay was an inevitable part of traveling, didn’t you? Well, it turns out that it isn’t:

Assorted toiletries: Don’t forget all your assorted toiletries from deodorant and shampoo, to a toothbrush and toothpaste.

When other bloggers are reminding you to remember your toothpaste and toothbrush, there’s not much we can add. “Wipe”, e.g.

The author also suggests that you take your phone, just in case you were dead set on leaving it at home. Like most people do when they travel.

 

The Simple Dollar

Well, here’s the opening sentence, formulated for the Alpha Centaurians whom the site’s author usually writes for. It’s a good refresher for any extraterrestrials, really, who aren’t familiar with human living customs:

In most American family homes, you’ll find one or two adults, sometimes paired with some number of children.

Some of these homes also feature pets, such as a dog or cat, or multiple dogs or cats, or a single dog and multiple cats, or a single cat and multiple dogs, but now we’re getting into advanced-level course work.

This post features the most toothless word in English, “consider”. As in, “consider quitting smoking to reduce your risk of lung cancer.” No, just freaking do it. Or don’t do it, whatever. But to tell people to “consider” doing something is the equivalent of telling them nothing at all.

To summarize, the Hamm-fisted (hey-oh!) author suggests that you “consider an alternative living situation” to save money on housing expenses. Whereas a normal person would say “find a roommate”, “consider an alternative living situation” adds that spunk of impenetrability.

But wait, he’s not done. The concluding tip in this post?

construct a second home on your land. 

Yes! A months-long full-time project that will require you to hire a contractor and laborers! Why doesn’t every person who’s short on funds try this? Heck, we should all be rich.

The point is that none of this garbage – pack a toothbrush, build a house on the house-sized lot that you already own but never thought about improving – is actionable, worthwhile, or anything other than a waste of both the author’s and the readers’ time.

Here’s some advice:

  • If you live in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, or Oregon, buy your groceries at WinCo. Good God. Their prices make Walmart look like Whole Foods.
  • You have an emergency fund? What the hell for? Take that money and put it in a 401(k). Buy gold with it. Buy BHP Billiton stock with it (3½% dividend yield, trading at near a 52-week low, ridiculously profitable.) That emergency will never come. Then again, there’s every possibility that it’s happening right now and you’re too blindly optimistic to even notice.
  • Change your freaking oil. Buy a permanent air filter, too. You can install it in 30 seconds, without tools. A $7 AutoZone battery tester will help out too, unless you want to run the risk of your battery dying in traffic and you have your heart set on paying a premium to get it fixed then and there.
  • Buy a house. The big quinella of low interest rates and low home prices won’t last forever. It’s lasted for years, but we’ve reached the nadir. The housing market is having a sale. Everything must go. Make someone an offer. Unless you have a compelling professional reason for renting, stop giving 100% of your dwelling expenses to a big fat rich landlord. (Note: The CYC principals are neither big nor fat.)
  • Which brings up another point. The proverbial ounce of prevention is physical activity. You know how some old people can fill out a pair of shorts without completely nauseating everyone around them, while others have those thick purple ankles and feet that terminate in toenails you could use to harvest crops with? What do you think those folks were doing 40 years ago? The former were taking the stairs and lifting weights. The latter were watching All My Children with one hand in a bowl of dry Froot Loops. (Note: Example cited may or may not be drawn from author’s real family life.)
  • Spend an hour or two running the numbers before spending 4 years in college. Chances are, your university education will not pay off. For it to be a worthwhile investment, you need to major in something not meaningless. If the very idea of running said numbers intimidates you to the point where you don’t want to do it, that’s a pretty good indication that anything you’d feel comfortable majoring in is not going to be worth studying.

Personal finance is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. As a general rule, the more complex it is (and the more you rationalize), the worse off you’ll be.

Filed Under: Bad Examples, Finance, Investments Tagged With: , , , , ,

Carnival of Wealth, Management Day Edition

September 3, 2012

 

Navigating your organization to new heights while inspiring business performance!

Today is Labor Day. And today’s Carnival of Wealth is dedicated to the millions of hardworking executives who tell labor what to do. Managers, loosen your ties and enjoy a few hours away from the office. You earned it.

The Carnival of Wealth. Scores, then dozens, now singles of posts about personal finance. From the sublime to the passable. From around the world. Starting now:

The CoW welcomes Harry Campbell at Your PF Pro, who shares our method for figuring out what credit card(s) to get. He writes about reward points, cash back offers and other features, without saying Word 1 about interest. Why? Because, as we’ve pointed out time and again, every card charges an interest rate of 0 if you pay your balance on time. Harry’s advice is basic and straightforward, and some people will still overthink it and refuse to look at anything other than “LOW INTRODUCTORY APR” before willingly signing up to have the credit card issuers take advantage of them. Those people will never be self-determining, let alone rich.

The redoubtable Liana Arnold of CardHub returns with a post about the relentless mission creep of government agencies. Well, that’s not what she intended it as, but that’s how we’re interpreting it.

Last year, thanks to all you idiots who can’t pay your credit card balances on time (see above) and who failed to read the agreements that you signed when you got the cards, the federal government created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Somewhere to complain, and somewhere to fix prices. Today, the CFPB has added the oversight of credit reporting bureaux to its purview. Your tax dollars at idleness. (Alas, Liana cites “Bad Boys” as a Bob Marley song. It was Inner Circle. In Liana’s defense, reggae artists are not hard to confuse.)

From John Kiernan at Wallet Blog, a post that speculates on the challenges that might face the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. No, current chairman Ben Bernanke has not been drawn & quartered (yet), but John thinks that Bernanke might not serve past 2014. As Bernanke’s nemesis and erstwhile presidential hopeful Ron Paul passes from the spotlight this week, we’ll take up the torch and the battle cry – “End the Fed”, the institution that’s gotten in the way of economic recovery throughout its loathsome century-long history.

Recent guest poster W at Off-Road Finance tells us a gambling story. No, not about the fat jackpot he won, but about the money he left on the table. W actually relied on his brain, rather than his gut, but still didn’t capitalize on a golden opportunity. His point? You need to do more than think, however rationally, to make money. You have to employ a little risk, too. The final paragraph of his post is one of the best we’ve ever read on the art of making money.

Free Money Finance begins a series on how to make extra money. Unlike some less rigorous bloggers we could mention, he doesn’t suggest selling your extra stuff or unscrewing the bulb from your oven light. Instead, he recommends that you do what you know; specifically that you teach what you’re proficient at, whether in a classroom setting or informally. If you don’t mind being around children (some of us are masochists), knock yourself out.

Joe Plemon of Personal Finance By The Book, who’s apparently a lot older than he looks, tells the story of his daughter who recently had her home insurance policy cancelled.  She made 3 claims in 9 years, got dropped, and signed with someone else for twice as much. Joe doesn’t tell us what the claims were, but does give a few ideas on how to avoid getting in that situation in the first place. The story has a happy ending in that she didn’t have to move back home and sleep in Joe’s garage.

Jill at My Dollar Plan writes about the ultimate fate of the Bush tax cuts, set to expire in 2010 and then given multiple respites. The House wants to extend them for everyone, the Senate wants to restrict them to people under a certain income. This is the same Senate that’s gone 3+ years without creating a budget, so no hurry. Maybe, just maybe, businesses would be more eager to hire people and invest if they could estimate their 2013 tax bills. The Control Your Cash Obvious Tax Plan (standard personal income deduction for everyone, uniform rate on the rest, zero corporate taxes) still doesn’t have any adherents in Congress. They know better.

Dividend Growth Investor tells us his secret, not much of a secret. He invests in blue chips that pay consistent dividends, year after year. (You mean throwing all your money at an unproven company like Facebook isn’t the way to build lasting wealth?) He has a quantifiable if not numerical investment goal – have his dividend income exceed his expenses – and he’s well on his way. This week he explains his criteria for investments. He doesn’t merely invest in any blue chip that bats his eyes at him, but rather at ones that have large moats, customer loyalty, competitive advantages…well, read the post. We don’t want to ruin it.

Mich at Beating the Index knows the Canadian resource markets better than anyone, or at least better than anyone who contributes to the CoW. This week he breaks down Marquee Energy – a Calgary-based oil driller with operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Ray Kroc once said his company is in the real estate business; Marquee might be too, for reasons you’ll discover when you click the link.

Finally, unregistered sex offender Nelson at Financial Uproar took time out from his prurient post series about hot finance babes to write about investing in yourself. That means doing something other than motivating yourself. Motivating yourself is the easy part. Nelson has noticed, as have we, that as a rule the people who read the most self-help books accomplish the least. Kind of like how the people who have the most home gym equipment serving double duty as clothes racks are the fattest.

Self-help books are perfect for letting you feel like you’ve accomplished something when you’ve really just read a book.

A rousing chorus of dittos for that, and we’re done.

UPDATE:

A late addition from Lance at Money, Life & More, which slipped just under our clearly stated deadline. Actually it didn’t, it was late, but Lance insisted. This is the much-anticipated sequel to the post of a fortnight ago (Lance was on vacation last week), “How To Write A Check”. Remember that? Why he performed the intermediate step of submitting it to us instead of just forwarding it directly to the Pulitzer Committee, we’re not sure.

This week, Lance suggests that you Save Half Of Every Raise For Retirement! (exclamation point his.) Our conclusion? Some post is walking around with nothing, because this one has it all! (exclamation point ours):

1. Advice given that the writer would never heed himself, phrased as something he’ll do (i.e., won’t do) in the future

I Plan to Save Half of Every Raise for Retirement

2. Homonym confusion

The best part of combating lifestyle inflation is that you’re overall expenses are lower.

3. Facile observation posing as insight

If I save more money now I will have more money at my disposal when I retire.

4. Guest sentence by Emmitt Smith

When it comes to retirement you only need to replaces your expenses

557 words that the author defecated out in less time than it would to defecate something more literal. Oh wait, one more:

5. The obligatory italicized postscript questions, written to inspire comments

So would you consider saving half of every raise for retirement? Which effect do you like better, saving more for retirement or combating lifestyle inflation?

If this post were any more derivative, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz would be taking credit for discovering it. The record for consecutive joke posts submitted to the CoW remains 6 by the chick from Newlyweds on a Budget, the Cal Ripken of blog carnivals. Because Lance missed last week, his streak starts again at 1.

Okay, now we’re done. Check us out on Investopedia, again and again. ProBlogger, too. See you back here tomorrow with new stuff, too. ‘Til then.

Filed Under: Carnivals Tagged With:
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