Financial Samurai

Golf is a taxing sport which requires a lot of practice, and a lot of patience.  The first time I played golf was in the 8th grade with my father.  Although I was the 5th wheel, I got to tee it up every hole there was a backlog, and hack it up on the site of the fairway as the men played.

I remember needing to go to the bathroom somewhere on the 6th fairway and running for 5 minutes back to the club house because I wasn’t allowed to pee in the woods.  “Pros aren’t peeing in the woods Sam, neither should you.”

With an iron stick, and a ball the size of a plum, golf is one of the hardest sports to learn and excel at.  It took me literally a year of constant play to break 100, and almost 5 years to consistently break 90.  More than 20 years later, I’ve hit a plateau and can hardly ever break 80, no matter how hard I try.

Here are the similarities between golf and life that you may enjoy.

AFTER A CERTAIN POINT, THERE’S NO MORE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Read more…

As the markets were melting down this past week I decided to go watch the World Champion San Francisco Giants beat up the lowly Arizona Diamondbacks in the middle of the day.  It’s quite a treat to watch every game this season because of our current world champ status.  Next season, we’ll be just another team, trying to figure out our way back to glory.

At $80 a ticket, access doesn’t come cheap, but with the ticket comes all you can drink cervezas.  Besides, 1pm games are the best on sunny days.  Might as well go!  When my friends and I got there, we were shocked.  The stadium was absolutely PACKED!  We are talking 40,000 people enjoying a baseball game in the middle of a work day.  See picture above.

I thought about it for a second and came to the realization that the reason why 40,000 people can spend on average $50 per ticket during the middle of the day is because despite the market meltdown, we all have job security or don’t need to work because we have the disposable income to spend.   With a sample set of 40,000, it’s obvious that the economy will be just fine and that unemployment is actually better than what the media drones on and on about.

Think about it.  If you were broke, you’d just stay at home or go to a bar and watch the game on TV for free.  If you were worried about your job, you wouldn’t ditch the afternoon to go watch a game.  You’d be working your tail off and trying to add value.  If you were unemployed, you aren’t sweating it because you’re getting $1,450/month in unemployment income for 99 weeks.  Spending $50 might be more wisely spent elsewhere, but it’s sunny, and it’s the SF Giants we’re talking about!

People have more money than you know.  Why else do you think companies like Apple, Prada, and Tiffany’s are doing so well?  I went to visit my friend’s new place this past weekend and it was awesome!  They had been living in a quaint 1,300 square foot apartment for the past several years and now own a 5 bedroom, 4,600 house on a half acre in one of the most prime areas for $3.3 million!  He said he wasn’t looking to buy, but couldn’t pass up such a good deal when he was able to sell some of his start-up company shares.  Not bad for a guy in his mid-30s just 5 years out of business school wouldn’t you say?

Don’t listen to media schadenfreude about how bad unemployment and the economy are.  They are just bitter they are tied to their desks and can’t come out and play.  I’ve got my finger on the buy trigger come flash crash, Moody’s/Fitch credit downgrade, banishment of US treasuries by foreigners and political gridlock.  And, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that the rest of you are thinking the same thing as well.  Why?  Because you’ve got the cash baby!

Readers, do you believe the economy is better than perceived?  Do you have some some positive anecdotes you can share with the rest of us?  What could be some pessimistic viewpoints with my story for all you Debby Downers out there?

HIGHLIGHT POSTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Read more…

Working out sucks.  I hate it with a passion because I find it so wasteful to expend energy on doing nothing.  I would rather use the energy to build a house in Somalia, landscape the backyard, or play sports than lift some stupid weights.  That said, working out is also convenient because there’s a gym right across from me that I attend before every team or client dinner outing.  I figure I better pump some iron and jog a little before blitzing my diet!

One of my goals in 2011 is to win a tennis tournament.  To do so, I have to improve my endurance given I faded in both tournaments since we had to play back to back matches each day.  The season really gears up in March, leaving me with a solid two months to get in shape.  I know there is no way in hell I will be able to go to the gym 3X or more a week so I’ve thought about enlisting a personal trainer for help.

THE BIG BUCKS MIGHT BE WORTH IT Read more…

I’m in a pickle and I need your help.  One of my friends who so happens to be a client, but who really is just a great friend who so happens to be a very large client, invited me to play tennis at his posh tennis club the other day.  After we hit around for an hour, he mentioned I should join and he could be my primary sponsor.  I told him I’d think about it over the weekend and let him know.

I did some digging with the Membership representative afterwards.  The first hint that told me I was in for a big dilemma was when she said there were no brochures as everything is “exclusive and private.”  “We don’t advertise our club Sam.” she said.  OK, great, how is that going to help me make an informed decision, I thought to myself.  Not wanting to piss her off or anything, I just asked her if she could tell me about how to join.  This is what she said: Read more…

A 6-6 Washington team beat Nebraska 19-7 in the Holiday Bowl.  Stanford demolishes ACC Champion Virginia Tech 40-12 in the 2011 Orange Bowl and now we have Oregon playing Auburn in the BCS National Championship game.  Clearly, the PAC 10 is the most dominant athletic/football conference in the country.  In 2010, Stanford also pounded Notre Dame 37 to 14 and UCLA crushed Texas 34 to 12.  Statistics don’t lie, no matter how biased you are living in middle America or on the East Coast.

If you compare academic match ups, the Pac 10 wins as well.  Not only are Stanford, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon academically superior to Notre Dame, Virginia Tech,  Texas, and Auburn based on polls by every single college ranking system available, they also have superior athletic programs to boot.  Furthermore, the campuses of Stanford, UCLA and Oregon are like country clubs, with phenomenal facilities and fantastic weather all year around.

Notre Dame, Texas, Auburn and Virginia Tech are fine schools in their own right.  However, if you compare the four against their Pac 10 match ups, there simply is no comparison.  Hence, why is it that athletic recruits would ever go to a school other than one in the PAC 10 if they had a choice?  Let’s find out.

DISCOVERING WHY THEY DON’T GO TO THE BEST Read more…

One of the most anticipated NBA free-agent announcements came when Lebron told the world he’s heading to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat.  Of the six teams coveting him, really only three stood a chance: Miami, Cleveland, and New York City for obvious reasons.  The other three teams: Chicago, LAC, and New Jersey will just be footnotes and forgotten.

What’s most interesting is not Lebron’s decision to make millions of dollars less to join two guys he thinks he can win championships with.  Instead, Lebron’s decision to completely spurn President Obama is what really gets me thinking!  No less than seven times has President Obama made a public statement insisting that Lebron join the Chicago Bulls. As you know, Obama was the Senator of Illinois before he became President.  Many pundits also believe that Chicago is a better candidate for Lebron to win championships with Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, Derrick Rose, Brad Miller, and Joakim Noah.  But, nope.  Not Lebron.

If Lebron James, who is a huge Obama fan, doesn’t even listen to Obama’s words, why should the general public?  It wasn’t like Obama was saying go to the Minnesota Timberwolves where they have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.  Chicago is a seriously legitimate team if not the best choice!

FIVE REASONS WHY LEBRON DOESN’T LISTEN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA Read more…

2009 was the year I rediscovered tennis.  Ironically, I figured I’d better utilize the club as much as possible because I couldn’t afford any other luxuries after the markets imploded!  Just last year, I failed miserably at breaking a 10 handicap (got to 10.2 and ricocheted) in golf and decided to quit before I threw my bag into the lake.

For the past 15 years, I forsook the game I played so diligently as a youngster.  It was boring running around, hitting a ball back and forth.  Now, I’m hooked again because of the camaraderie of the game.  Although tennis is an individual sport, there’s a team aspect to it if you join a league.  Meanwhile, my evil plan is to get my wife to get good enough so we can play some competitive mixed doubles my next summer!

PHYSICAL PROBLEMS MATERIALIZE Read more…

I had one mission this weekend, and that was to “high-five” as many famous people as possible.  You see, The President’s Cup descended on San Francisco and I was determined to watch America’s best golfers tee it up against the rest of the world, less Europe (that’s the Ryder’s Cup).

Did I succeed in my mission?  It depends on whether you count: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Freddie Couples, Greg Norman, Condoleeza Rice, Gavin Newsom, and Michael Jordan as famous people!  For if you do, you’ll understand why I’m never washing my hands again!

In “Revenge of The Nerds: Golf & Tennis Are #1″, we write that if you want to make a lot of money, you should think about picking up either golf or tennis. As the 30,000+ patrons at Harding Park showed me today, there’s a darn lot of different types of folks interested in golf!  All along the signature par 4, 468 yard, 15th hole you saw corporate tents with names such as: Charles Schwab, PG&E, and Mastercard filled with rich looking patrons sipping their Chardonnay’s.  Ah, to gain access to one of these tents.  Except for Citigroup, it’s good to know there weren’t any government bailed out entities partying it up on our dime, so score one for the common folk! Read more…