The Katana: Happy Chinese New Year!
What a coincidence that both Valentine’s and Chinese New Year fall on the same day. In fact, if you’re Chinese who celebrates Valentine’s Day, this could be the luckiest year of your life! For those who aren’t, you still have 20 more years until 2030 to change your identity. Let’s look at a couple of similarities between Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year.
COLOR: Red is the default color for love and happiness. Love > Money = Happiness as we explored recently. If you’ve got love in addition to money, well then, you’re really one lucky barbecue pork bun!
TRADITION: The Chinese give young-ins “hong bao”, or red envelopes stuffed with money to sway them to be good. Lovers also give their honeys money indirectly through dinners, flowers, chocolates, and spa massages, to sway them to do…. you decide.
Chinese civilization has been around for over 5,000 years. Perhaps they are the original inventors of Valentine’s Day, spaghetti, sushi, and the running man dance. Hmmmm.
The Samurai Fund: We are killing it team! We didn’t capitulate on Toyota Motors, and dog poop Monster Worldwide wins this year’s #1 Super Bowl commercial. TSF is up 0.13% year to date vs. the S&P 500 down 3.55%. As a result of our massive outperformance in this rocky market, Warren Buffet is giving us another $100 million to invest. With these new proceeds, I invite Flexo to be our newest member. His selection is Flextronics (FLEX), a vertically integrated electronics manufacture based in Singapore. Welcome aboard! (Click TSF link for updated chart.)
Week In Review: Gotta say, it was fun auditioning for Cosmopolitan Magazine with “How To Get Your Super Motivated Boyfriend To Marry You“. The post turned off some women, found support from other women, while speaking to some fellas as you can see in the comments. Of course, when the guys went back and asked how their girlfriends felt, they all disagreed. After the 5th year of dating, have a read again and share your thoughts.
Every guy has some degree of SMB in them. It’s not possible to always feel secure, never have any pressure, and marry the girlfriend by year two. The 50/50 equal effort split is also just a pipe dream. Someone will always feel more affection than the other. Persecuted men out there, this one’s for you! Helping ladies help men so men can help ladies sounds like a win-win scenario.
Rest of the Month: We’re going to slowly blend back into more personal finance related topics. I’m happy to present a couple more guest posts, and at least one more book review and giveaway to readers. As part of the Yakezie Alexa Challenge, I will continue highlighting your work here and on Twitter. Perhaps you will do the same.
HIGHLIGHT POSTS OF THE WEEK
* “The Difference Between Lifestyle Creep And Inflation” from Money Reasons.
* “A Very Useful List Of Credit Card Calculators” from Credit Card Chaser.
* “If Money Can’t Buy Happiness, Should We Just Get Rid Of It?” by Amateur Financier.
* “Be Careful What You Say And Do At Work” from Cash Money Life.
* “Interview With 23 Year Old Poker Player Extraordinaire” from DINKS Finance.
* “Sorry Roger You Tiger Now” by Comcast Cable to celebrate the new year!
Regards,
Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”
Follow on Twitter @FinancialSamura and subscribe to our RSS or E-mail feed.
PS, Always appreciate readers who point out typos and grammatical errors.
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Thanks for the mention!
In honor of it being both Valentines Day and the Chinese New Year… I think we’ll go out to eat Chinese again tonight!
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Long weekends are the best. It’s pretty awesome having Valentine’s, Chinese New Year, and Presidents day together. That’s awesome news about the Samurai fund, woohoo! haha- I totally forgot about that tiger commercial. hilarious!
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Thanks for the mention Sam, which was very generous of you given the terrible performance of MWW. I still think the economy is going to boom back and Monster will be well-placed (err, of my two choices, one of which was taken!) but it is lonely down here in the red. *sniff*
Monevator´s last blog ..Weekend reading: Real estate realities
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It’s no accident.
I believe the forces of capitalism tie holidays together for maximum spending. This is why Super Bowl Sunday was moved closer to Valentine’s Day–to increase sales driven by male guilt.
Except for SMBs, of course.
Matt S.´s last blog ..Weekly Wisdom: Passion and Personal Financial Freedom
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haha, lookin’ good my man! (that’s you in that comcast commercial, yes?)
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@Money Reasons
No prob! Hope you had a good one!
@Matt S.
It’s all one big conspiracy! Definitely maybe!
@Monevator
Yeah, pretty shameful to have such a dog in MWW, but I didn’t expect much from ya, so no sweat! Hope you had fun hanging out with the elders!
@J. Money
I donno, for some reason the phrase, “Roger, You Tiger now” is so funny to me. Comcast should re-air the commercial for the start of the new year. No brainer!
@Charlie
HAR en fuego Charlie! Well done mate!
admin´s last blog ..The People Asked To Get ROCKED & A Boulder Drops On Their Heads
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Thanks for the mention! (BTW check out the cool infographic I just posted in the link below as I remember you had left some good insight into an earlier post about Haiti donation statistics).
Credit Card Chaser´s last blog ..Haiti Donations by Country
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Hi Sam, sorry ABM disappointed yet another week. Barely above what it was last week.
1 year target estimate is still $25.50, and the dividend yield is 2.7% which makes up for the slight drop in price. The MACD is still trending up so maybe we’ll see some movement soon.
I was born in the year of the Rooster, how about you?
David @ MBA briefs´s last blog ..Easy ways to improve your memory
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Thanks for the mention, FS. :)
Patrick´s last blog ..3 Key Decisions Young Families Need To Make When Preparing a Will
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Up here in Vancouver we are celebrating, celebrating & celebrating (did I say we are celebrating?)
The biggest celebration is that we are hosting the world to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Never mind all the athletic events and the athletes – but the whole downtown is one virtual party. There are some 100 pavilions that have been put up by countries, provinces (that’s like “states”), and big time companies. One of the most popular pavilions is Heinneken (who’d have thought?).
Then one of our athletes, Alexandre Bilodeau, gives a huge Valentine’s gift to Canada – a Gold! This is the third time that Canada is hosting the Olympic Games (one summer and two Winters) but we have never won a gold on home turf! Can you imagine! No home gold. Now the drought is broken! That has got to be cool. Takes some pressure off of our hockey team (I think that if they don’t bring home the gold they will be blued, tarred and tatooed and maybe even worse :-(
Chinese New Year … we have a large Chinese population here in Vancouver that goes all out every year in celebrating the Chinese New Year. They always put on a good show with the dragon dance and lots of other special events … and just try to find a seat in any Chinese restaurant without having to wait – we have awesome Chinese restaurants here, even the Chinese who visit from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China are impressed, and that’s saying something!
Valentina´s last blog ..Sunday Morn Musings: Valentine’s, Gung Hay Fat Choy & The Smell of Gold
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@Valentina
That’s right! You are in Vancouver! Awesome! I saw Alex Bilodeau’s gold medal moguls freestyle run yest. Amazing speed and jumps! Congrats on finally winning gold on home soil!
Have a spanking good time and a USA vs. Canada hockey final would be a dream come true!
admin´s last blog ..An Opportunity To Speak With Consumerism Commentary
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Thanks for the mention Sam… figured the mention of a BMW would grab your attention!
Ryan @ Planting Dollars´s last blog ..Hiking Diamond Head and Snorkeling In Waikiki
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Sam, thanks for the mention. Sorry I didn’t pick up on it sooner. It’s been one of those weeks!
Kevin@OutOfYourRut´s last blog ..New Car or Used Car – Which is the Better Deal?
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