Financial Samurai

For the past two years I’ve taken the bus to work after driving for 7 years prior.  The company removed our free parking benefits and I wasn’t about to pay $350/month to park in a garage just 5 miles away.

I have a love hate relationship with the bus.  When it’s raining, and I have to stand outside shivering, I hate it.  When the bus skips my stop every so often, I hate it.  When the bus driver slams on the brakes a couple feet away from the stop light and we all go flying, I hate it.  When the bus is packed like sardines, but there are some very attractive riders I need to squeeze next to, well, I guess it’s OK.

My VIP Pass aka monthly bus pass costs $60, while taking a cab to and from work costs $30.  Hence, the cost breakdown is simply $60 for a bus, $350 for parking, and $600 for a cab every month.  Out of principle, I wasn’t going to spend 5-10X more on transportation if I could just ride the bus.

WHAT A DUMMY Read more…

After a long week, the last thing either of us want to do is cook.  We don’t go out because of the rain, and delivery for the 3rd time this week is out of the question.  Inglorious Basterds arrives in the mail, and we just seek something sufficient and efficient to eat.

Unfortunately, as we raid through the cupboards all we find is peanut butter, with no bread and spaghetti with no sauce.  We also find stale crackers, and a pound of dried pumpkin seeds, but that’s it.  Drats!  Good thing I keep looking, because I find my canister of protein powder which I forgot I had.  The filthy drink contributes today.

We pour stale crackers onto our plates, along side two heaping spoons of peanut butter.  To wash it all down, a lumpy and not so delicious vanilla protein shake each.  It was nostalgic, eating like college kids again.

FIVE KEY TAKEAWAYS Read more…

Author: Phil Villarreal was a syndicated film critic (one of the best jobs on earth) and is a general reporter for the Arizona Daily Star.  Phil contributes to OK! Magazine and blogs at becauseitoldyouso.com.

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.  244 pages in soft cover.  $12.95.

Summary: “Secrets of A Stingy Scoundrel” is a hilarious book that has been reviewed by many personal finance sites already.  Hence, I’ll take a slightly different approach.

First of all, Phil is one proud cheapo who is potentially helping millions of Americans (if they buy his book) save thousands of dollars a year.  Second of all, the breadth of stinginess is impressive, with nine chapters: Personal, Eating, Relationships, Household, Finance, Leisure & Entertainment, At The Workplace, Corporate Cataclysm, and Gross, Mean and Just Plain Wrong. Read more…

The following is a guest post by long time reader and entrepreneur, Investor Junkie!  IJ writes about how we should stop our complaining, and realize we are wealthier than the large majority of the world.

If you live in the United States, you are wealthy beyond what most others dream of. Your salary is 99% higher than of the world population.  Visit areas like India, and Africa, and you’ll see what real poverty looks like. If you moved there, you could live like a king! Don’t believe me?  Visit Global Rich List and plug in your yearly salary.

So what exactly does it mean to be wealthy anyways?  It’s all relative to the environment you live in. What might be considered below the poverty level in the USA ($22,050 for a family of four), might be considered well off when living in say Uganda.  According to the Global Rich List even at the US poverty level, you still make more money than 89% of the world.

If you look at the Wikipedia chart, you will see the USA has the most wealth compared to any other country (including Japan). No other country comes close to the USA.  So while you may not feel wealthy comparative to what you see in the media, you still are better off than 99% of the world population.  In terms of average income,  the USA is only 13^th in the world, but we still have more stored wealth than any other country.

Stop complaining that you can’t afford that new Lexus you lust for. Many people around the world don’t even own a car! They get from place to place by bicycle. It’s true you may not live like a rock star, famous actor, or business titan, but you live better than most.

Most people in the United States have: Read more…

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a recovering car-aholic.  Funny enough, the way I deal with my addiction is to go to the BMW dealer!  I also go to the Audi, Mercedes, Honda, Land Rover and Porsche dealers too, but only the BMW dealer is on my way home and has an easy parking lot to leave Moose unattended.  I wonder if they cut out the free popcorn and diet cokes because of me.   Hmmm.

Over the past 3 years, I must have visited the BMW dealer at least 65 times to the dismay of the sales people.  They must have a code word for my type, “cheap bastard” or “stop wasting my time you poor SOB” maybe, but I don’t care.  Nothing thrills me more than sitting in a brand new, over-priced automobile and inhaling that unbeatable new car smell!  After every experience, I deftly try and avoid the salespeople and pick up a new brochure so I can extend the enjoyment at home.

In fact, as a joke I wrapped up the latest Land Rover LR4 brochure for Christmas and gave it to my wife.  I told her she should expect a nice shiny black on black beast when we get back to San Francisco.  She was kinda amused, not really.

If the salespeople insist on going for a test drive, who am I to argue?  But, I make it a point to only waste the time of the most eager of sales people beavers.  The fun of gunning a $80,000 BMW M3 every other month is such a thrill!  Besides, I hear they get a little commission for every test drive anyway.

NEW OBSESSION Read more…

Can you spot the heli-pad?

It’s Black Shopping Weekend and world stock markets are crumbling anywhere between 2-5% because Dubai World, the country’s main investing arm can’t pay its $60bn in debt for another 6 months!

Who would have thought that one of the most glitzy countries in the world would have trouble paying their own debt on time?  The fear of systemic contagion is real as investors sell first, and ask questions later.

If Dubai can’t pay their debts, who else can’t?  The US of course, but that’s OK!  Everybody will fund our debt as you observe the US dollar and US treasuries strengthen.  Don’t believe me?  The 10-yr US treasury yield has dipped below 3.25% again.  What inflation?  Cheap money forever!

Investors around the world can mock us, and debase our weak currency all they want!  You shouldn’t care, because all you have to do is watch what investors DO and not what they say.  Investors are rushing in to our arms today crying “We love you America!  Give us shelter!”

So many have disagreed with our “A Weak Dollar Doesn’t Matter Folks!” thesis.  Yet so many are going to shop till they drop for pieces of junk they shouldn’t be buying in the first place!  It’s Black Friday every day at Ross, TJ Max, and Craigslist, so save your stress and relax!  If you go shopping today and check your 401k and stock accounts when you return, you might just have to go back on Monday and return everything!

* CONTEST * Predict where the Dow Jones closes today (11/27) and win a free pat on the back!  I predict 10,288.  I’ll also highlight the winner in my weekly Katana wrap.

Readers, are there any out there who are relaxing at home in their pajamas being entertained by the media coverage of shopping frenzy?  Why don’t people just shop on-line instead, given similar deals?  If you make $20/hr from work, but stand in line for 5 hours to save $100 on a laptop, doesn’t the bring you back to even?

Dale Siegel is offering a second “The New Rules of Mortgage” book as a giveaway.  Why not just comment and give yourself a chance to win?  What’s cheaper than FREE?

Keigu,

Financial Samurai - “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

Twitter @FinancialSamura and sign up for our RSS feed.

In a stunning move to shore up a $535 million budget gap, the UC Regents voted to raise student undergraduate tuition by 32 percent (to $10,302/yr) this past Thursday!  Nothing like a little 10X increase over the rate of inflation to get blood boiling.

It’s really sad that during a difficult economic climate, the University of California Regents can conceivably raise tuition by such a magnitude.  Part of the reason why many of these fine students attend the UC system is because of cost.  Students from UC Berkeley or UCLA, for example, can easily get into many of the best private schools in America.  But for many, $40,000 a year in tuition is just too hefty a burden to carry.

The reality remains that due to careless spending by the state, budget cuts and a competitive market place for attracting top professors, tuition increases are inevitable. Read more…

Alrighty, thank goodness it’s October!  After declaring September to be frugality month (“Samurai September”), I’m finally free to splurge on as much junk as I want!  Was it painful for a recovering spendaholic to not buy anything other than food for a whole month?  Damn straight it was!

Here are some things I learned along the way:

1) By writing out a promise whether it is on a piece of paper stuck to your refrigerator, or on a world-famous website, your goals become REAL.  Writing out my goals really motivates me to stick to them.  It’s just like when you have your To Do List on a notepad.  If there’s one thing that’s not crossed out, you do your darndest to execute .  Focus on the mission soldier!

2) When your goal is to not spend money, you start revisiting things you already have and enjoy them again.  I went through my 1950’s baseball card collection that I had stashed away in the closet and had a fantastic time reading all the stats of great players such as: Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax rookie, Roberto Clemente, Yogie Berra, and Al Kaline.  I picked up my dusty Martin acoustic guitar and learned how to play: “This Is The First Day of My Life,” by Bright Eyes, “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” by Poison, and “Blackbird” by Paul McCartney pretty well.  Finally, my old Klein mountain bike sure got plenty of good use as well.

3) Once I got in the habit of appreciating all that I have, I started not wanting to buy new stuff.  My five year old G4 iBook is a great example of making due with less.  In fact, I wanted to start selling stuff and getting rid of clutter.  There’s no sacrifice in my mind anymore about not buying new things out of desire.  The only things I need to buy now are things out of necessity, such as replacing my loafers given they have holes in them.

4) Time really goes by quickly. I still remember very clearly when I wrote my declaration, and now it’s over.  But, what remains is a nice chunk of change in my savings account because I didn’t splurge on stuff I didn’t need.

5) It’s more fun doing things together! I joined a club of like-minded individuals who want to be millionaires eventually.  I discovered a guy who works three jobs to make ends meet (Brian at My Next Buck).  Brian then introduced me to another fella who was $101,000 into debt and decided to deliver pizza to pay it off  (follow Jeff on Twitter @DeliverAwayDebt.  Jeff is freaking hilarious, and makes me want to go work at In N’ Out Burger for kicks!).  I then was able to call into Blogtalk Radio and speak to Baker at Man vs. Debt and Jim at Bargaineering about their views on using cash and credit cards.  It’s just FUN to speak to, and trade e-mails with random folks, all with the same purpose of becoming financially independent. Read more…

Luck will have it there are others out there who also want to become millionaires!  Who would have thunk.  After putting up my $1 million dollar “Freedom Fund” tracker this past June, I’ve had a number of inquiries regarding what it’s all about.  By starting completely over in my Freedom Fund this past summer, I will be as honest about my finances as possible.  If you’ve read my earlier Net Worth posts, you’ll know that I believe people should have a Cash Goal, rather than a Net Worth goal.  Very simply, we have a better chance of counting on Cash during retirement, than on all the other stuff.

I was surfing the PF network and stumbled across J. Money’s site, “Budgets Are Sexy.” He started “The Million Dollar Club” for all those who simply wish to be millionaires.  There isn’t any red velvet rope to get in and I don’t want to be alone in my journey towards gathering $1 million cash, so I’m joining!  It’s all about community and I’m looking forward to J and my fellow members stopping by with their support. Read more…

Goodbye My Precious!

After much debate, I walked over to the Apple store and returned my oh so sweet Macbook Pro.  Today was the last day until the return policy expired.  I actually felt a little bit sad, because I got to see the laptop when the store clerked cut open the sticker to make sure I wasn’t returning a couple cement blocks instead.  My reasoning to return were quite simple:

1. No reasonable bids came in for my 8GB, iPod touch for $199 because the day after Apple stopped their promotion of a free iPod with every Macbook purchase, they lowered their price from $239 to $199!  I didn’t change my pricing until the second week, and by that time, it was a little too late to negotiate.
2. My guest post failed to get published within two weeks at this large personal finance site.  I made a submission with outline, thesis, and bio which was immediately responded to and accepted the very next day.  Several hours were spent writing 1,350 words, as well as several more hours revising.  Although they have confirmed receipt of my 2nd draft, it’s still in the queue.  At least I got a nice $10 gift card at Amazon!
3. My cash flow cannot afford $1,465 for September because a $1,700 bill is coming due for a couple airlines tickets purchased at the end of August.  I try to only buy stuff through cash flow, and never touch savings, otherwise how will I ever build a big enough nut for retirement?  Going into revolving credit card debt is NOT an option and never will be!
4. I made a promise not to buy anything in September and feel guilty breaking a promise.  With only 6 more days left to go for the month, I need……… to……. stand…….. strong……… and fight the spending addiction!  I wonder if this is how a recovering addict feels, where every day of non-use, and in my case non-spend, is a victory?  It feels good to go 24 days in a row without buying anything other than food!
5. Finally, my wife actually fixed my old iBook G4!  Its speed is as good as new thanks to several updates and clean ups.  Too bad the battery life only lasts 25 minutes now. Read more…