Crystal G

I don’t know where this came from, I found it in my email that I’ve been cleaning out lately. I must have thought it was a good piece and wanted to save it. It’s about a man who came over to the U.S. in the 50’s with only $400 in his pocket and how he became a great success. He has some good advice in here:

Here’s a hindsight view from someone that came to the USA in 1956 with the grand sum of $400 and the promise of a job. Today my wife and I have a high 7 figure portfolio of municipal bonds and CDs, a primary home and a vacation home, both paid for, and two retirement pensions and two SS checks arriving like clockwork every month.

In every person’s life there are a very small number of very significant turning points. Take one bad turn and you can impact your future big time. I must also add that there is one factor that none of us have any control over and that is the date on which we were born, i.e. timing.

Factors that are important for success:

1) You need parents and an extended family that are great role models.

2) You need to buckle down, be very conscientious, and work very hard starting at grade school because without a good education behind you the road of life will be significantly tougher for you.

3) In the vast majority of cases you need a college education, preferably with a post graduate degree since the competition gets tougher and tougher all the time.

4) You need to get it right when you decide to marry. I have been married to a wonderful woman for 53 years. Divorces can be a finance killer, quite apart from all the unhappiness and stress.

5) You need to be the best employee you possibly can and keep improving your job skills so that when layoffs occur you aren’t one of the unfortunate ones to be let go.

6) You need to start a savings program when you get your first paycheck and stick with it.

7) You need to make the maximum possible contribution to your company 401K plan.

You need to live frugally, at least until you are very secure financially, then you can ease up a bit.

9) The good education helps again when it comes to managing your own finances. If you have good math skills, understand the power of compounding, understand the devastation that one large percentage loss can make to your portfolio, then you have an excellent chance of acquiring the skills needed to manage your own investments.

10) Being born in a good year can prevent you from meeting an early death in a war, keep you out of periods when the economy and job market go through a serious downturn, and allow you the opportunity to benefit from periods when jobs were plentiful (i.e. during the Cold War), and grow your investments very significantly during bubbles and periods like the nineties when the financial markets were unusually strong. Thus I am the first to admit that LUCK plays a huge role in one’s life.

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I’m keeping track of my payments towards the remainder of our interest accruing debt (besides the house) to kinda see the progress as we reach my goal of having this gone by or in February April 2010. So expect these posts monthly! Each month, seeing the progress should hopefully motivate me to stay on track with this.

• Starting Balance of Debt in February 2010: $2712.16
• Total Payments in February 2010: $2259.79
• Total Payments YTD: $11037.22
• Total Card Charges in February 2010: $900.76
• Total Finance Charges For February 2010: $25.75
• Total Finance Charges YTD: $162.41
• Starting Balance for March 2010: $1353.13
• $0 Goal: April 2010

Notes for this month:
Tax return was applied to the debt, and I’m hoping that by opening my dad a checking account and stopping him from using this card that it will help immensely.

See also:
January 2010, December 2009, November 2009, October 2009, September 2009

and My series of paying off dad’s loan in 8 months

Apparently I forgot to post this earlier this month. January was a bad month. February’s will be better.

I’m keeping track of my payments towards the remainder of our interest accruing debt (besides the house) to kinda see the progress as we reach my goal of having this gone by or in February 2010. So expect these posts monthly! Each month, seeing the progress should hopefully motivate me to stay on track with this.

• Starting Balance of Debt in January 2009: $2221.45
• Total Payments in January 2010: $2318.75
• Total Payments YTD: $8777.43
• Total Card Charges in December 2009: $2609.46
• Total Finance Charges For December 2009: $0
• Total Finance Charges YTD: $136.66
• Starting Balance for February 2010: $2712.16
• $0 Goal: April 2010

Notes for this month:
January was a big month, simply because I spent $1500 to have my brake system completely redone on the mustang. Dad also had a lot of automotive work done, which of course came out of my pocket. The key is to not let it get out of control It was just a bad bad month in general.

See also:
December 2009, November 2009, October 2009, September 2009

and My series of paying off dad’s loan in 8 months

Nothing of great importance is going on for me right now (that I’m willing to talk about here, anyway). I am steadily chipping away at the Grove membership manual that has been sorely lacking, as well as my CTP. I do a few web projects now and then for my Grove and for ADF, and I make sure I have personal time to just enjoy. Whether this is by watching deer outside with dad or going through boxes in the basement. The key thing for me is to find a balance between duties and life. For some reason people always seem to think I am overwhelmed or too busy with projects. That is simply not the case. I balance my life out very well. I reached a high point of busyness when I was taking my tax class, but that has long been over. I change tasks that I work on now and then, usually because I want to ride the “motivation” for a certain project until it runs out. Then I will move on to a different one. This works for me. I don’t have to complete everything right away, and I’m certainly not taking on anything new (unless it’s freelance work for extra $).

Speaking of taxes, I did get my return back on Friday. I got $1606 back, $114 of which went to state because of some of my freelance work. PA also has what is known as “Local” taxes, which I saved up $600 for throughout the year since work does not take out local taxes. I also spent $200 on some new clothes which was sorely needed as my duct tape was not holding up anymore The rest went to debt, and to starting my dad up his own checking account so I can see if switching him to that instead of credit will help us balance out our financial relationship some. On average he puts about $900 on my credit card, which is about what I pay into it every month, so this was clearly not working.

And before someone preaches to me about getting money back for taxes……I am not stupid. I know what taxes are. But I prefer not to “owe” taxes, I claim one of my exemptions and that is it. I do not care about your opinion on this matter.

I have not had much desire to blog about much of anything lately. I’m note entirely sure why. I’ve had things to write about, but most are summed up quickly and tweeted. I suppose twitter is taking away most of my blogging.

Each month for the last year I’ve wanted to see how many $0 days I could get. All costs are rounded.

February 01: Paid 6 month car insurance premium and $33 in gas
February 02: $0
February 03: $0
February 04: $30 in gas
February 05: Bi-Monthly Bill Payment Day
February 06: $0
February 07: $31 needless purchase
February 08: $0
February 09: $0
February 10: $0
February 11: $52 on some winter gear that I felt I was sorely lacking during snowpocalypse
February 12: $60 on taxes
February 13: $0
February 15: $0
February 16: $0
February 17: $0
February 18: $0
February 19: Bi-Monthly Bill Payment Day and $33 in gas
February 20: $37 on dinner
February 21: $0
February 22: $55 on some pest control supplies cause I have silverfish and stupid mice, $32 on gas
February 23: $0
February 24: $0
February 25: $0
February 26: Paid state and local taxes, $10 dinner with co-workers, $200 on clothes from tax return money, $35 on gas
February 27: $0
February 28: $0

Days in February not spending money: 17.
This is my last post of my $0 days. I said I’d do it for a year, and I started in March 2009.

Total $0 for the last year: 201 out of 365

See also: January, December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March

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