The power of choice...

I learned a long time ago that life is about choices. We can choose to act or we can choose to be the victim. Such a simple concept with extremely powerful results. If we do nothing, then we choose to do nothing and we have nobody to blame for the results of our inaction. If we don't like our job, we can choose to do nothing, or we can choose to look for a new one. If we are over weight, we can choose to eat less, or choose to exercise, or choose to get help from a doctor, or ... Choice is what makes the world go round, or not! If you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself, then look around. There are choices that you can make to change that situation. Or maybe you have already made a choice. Maybe you want to feel sorry for yourself.

I have recently been on a reading binge and stumbled upon another gem of a book, Monday Morning Choices: 12 Powerful Ways to Go from Everyday to Extraordinary by David Cottrell. This is another easy read that discusses the power of choice and how choices can change your life. I highly recommend this book. It might be a good choice for you to read it!

How to be a Mega Rock Star...

Saturday my wife and I took a trip to Cleveland to see the Blue Man Group. I had never really seen anything they had done other than a couple of commercials so I didn't really know what to expect. My wife was pretty excited, as she has wanted to see them for quite sometime. We had a great time! It was a high energy performance from start to finish. They kept the crowd engaged the entire show. The theme of "How to be a Mega Rock Star" gave them plenty of material to work with. A great blend of what I would call "mild" comedy, great music, and creative use of percussion instruments. Some of the instrument were quite unlikely, but very effective. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend the show! Now I am a "Mega Rock Star"! Well, at least in my dreams!

Do you want to be rich?

I just finished a book that I received from my financial planner. My eyes are wide open now. If you want to get to the promised land without question, then you must get this book and follow the plan. It is an easy read that is simple and to the point. Here is just one piece of advice from the author that is both powerful and relevant to the current financial environment. "Don't panic: The secret to wealth in equities is not getting scared out of them". Want to find out why? Get this book, Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth: How You and Your Financial Advisor Can Grow Your Fortune in Stock Mutual Funds by Nick Murray. You will be glad you did.


Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

The sky is falling...

It looks like the sky is falling in the financial world with the news on Bear Stearns we have all been reading the last couple of days. The Fed is trying to ride their horse to the rescue. Who knows how that story will end. Now is the time when your financial adviser should be earning his money. His job is to keep you from doing something stupid. Bailing now is probably the absolute worst thing one could do if their portfolio is properly diversified. Now is the time when most folks who are going it alone get scared and start selling. Your adviser should be holding your hand and helping you stay the course. It is counter intuitive for most of us to feel like there is a huge sale going on. If you are adding to you portfolio routinely, you are getting a lot more for your money in this faltering market. Stick to your plan. This too shall pass!

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

Man's Best Friend...

 

Whoever said that dogs were man's best friend was right on the money. My dog's name is EveeAussie, but we call her Aussie for short. You don't want to know where EveeAussie came from, but understand that when you have kids that can't agree, compromise is a powerful thing. Aussie is a Jack Russell. Everything you have ever heard about how Jack Russells are extremely smart is right on the money. This dog is scary smart. I think sometimes she knows what I am thinking before I think it. She is also a ferocious hunter. There is no chipmonk on earth safe when she catches their scent. She actually took on a ground hog last year and although it was quite a battle, the ground hog lost the bloody war.

When I am working at home, Aussie spends her time in the rocker next to my desk. She listens to every conference call, and occasionally offers her two cents worth. If she could talk, I am sure that she would ad plenty of value to the calls. If she could write, she probably would have her own blog. I think she has asperations of retirement too, but she has no intentions of turning over the management of her portfolio to a financial planner. She makes no "bones" about that!

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

To be a Rock and not to Roll...

Today I was truly humbled. My son who is home for spring break fired up his XBox 360 and plugged in Guitar Hero. I am watching him play and listening to the music. Alice Cooper, Heart, Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult... Hey, I know that music! "Wanna try Dad?" my son asked with a smirk on his face. How hard could it be I thought. Like a sucker, I took the bait. I can't play a plastic guitar like a rock star. I can't even play like a fifth grader. All I got out of 10 minutes trying to show up my son was a good start on carpal tunnel! He on the other hand got a good laugh. I think I will remain a spectator from now on. I know my place. Long live the king and he ain't me! Check out this 9 year old on youtube. I can't even thumb my nose that fast.

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

Laughter is the best medicine!

Why is it that people that retire and finally get connected to the Internet turn into electronic "Jedi's"? If we disallowed email as a means of communication to people over 65, then cyberspace would stand a good chance of imploding! It is amazing the number of emails that can be generated in a 24 hour period by the seniors of our nation. Where do they find all of the jokes that they circulate? We know where they find the time. I feel particularly honored that I am on the receiving end of the "smile a day" link that email has created. That someone thinks enough of me to put me on their list is pretty special. I received some particularly funny content from my favorite Uncle today that is worth sharing. You gotta love these bumper stickers. Enjoy and be sure to visit the site that provided this very funny content, P&M Home Care Services, Inc.

Hertz has a better idea?

This week was the travel week from hell. The weather in the Midwest has been horrible. More snow than I have seen in years. Trying to fly from the east coast to Ohio was impossible. My flight was cancelled twice on Friday due to the closing of my destination airport, CMH. Although Southwest re-booked me on a flight for Saturday, there was no guarantee that it would fly either.

I decided to rent a car and drive rather than risk being stuck away from home all weekend and leaving my wife at home to shovel snow by herself. I normally rent from Enterprise, but even though they have been promising the addition of one way rentals to their portfolio of services for quite some time, they still don't offer that option. I checked out National, and they had a car, but their price for a one way rent... $1000 for one day! I am guessing that would have outfitted me with a gold plated tank. I nearly fell on the floor. Talk about holding a traveler hostage! I find it hard to understand how Southwest can charge only $55 to fly me from BWI to CMH with some of the most friendly people I have ever been around, but National wanted 18 times that much and I was going to be all by myself.

My next stop was Hertz. After all, I did have a "Gold" card. The only thing gold was the rate. Their price was $228 for a one day, one way rental. Still very spicy, and again, I felt like I was being taken advantage of due to the weather situation, but I did not want to spend the weekend in Baltimore. I took the bait, rented the car, and embarked on the eight hour drive home. Fortunately, I beat the heaviest of the snow and rolled into my driveway at 2 o'clock in the morning.

When I woke up this morning, mother nature had obviously been busy the rest of the night and she had spread well over a foot of snow across the Ohio valley. She also had the wind whipping it into drifts across the area roads causing most of the counties in Ohio to issue either level two or level three snow emergencies. My rental car was pretty well entrenched in my driveway from all of the blowing snow. The airport where it needed to be returned was 25 miles away. Evaluating the situation, I felt it was best to contact Hertz to see what allowances they would make for returning the car late due to the severe weather conditions.

In calling the service number on the back of my "Gold" Hertz card, I was told that I would need to talk to their "extensions" department. They transferred me to that department, and they told me that I would need to talk to the folks in Columbus where I was returning the car. They provided me with the number, and I called the Hertz rental desk at the Columbus airport. The rental desk in Columbus informed me that since I rented the car BWI in Baltimore, that they could not access my information. They told me that the contract was with Baltimore and that I would need to contact them. I proceeded to call Baltimore and they didn't have much empathy for my plight since they didn't have any snow in Baltimore and really didn't have a clue about what was going on in Ohio. After much bantering with the fine folks at Hertz in Baltimore, they were able to offer me a gracious rate of $110 per day for each additional day that I held the car. That was a discount of 50% off of the wonderful $220 they charged me for the one day one way rental! I finally relented as I was wearing down after an hour on the phone being passed around. I sure am glad I have that "Gold" card. I am sure that it saved me loads of time. After getting off of the phone and calming down to a mild rage, I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to risk life and limb to get the car back to the Columbus airport.

I loaded up my snow shovel (my personal car was sitting in long term parking at the airport and was probably snowed in), and began the driving the 2o treacherous miles across town to the airport. Upon arriving at Port Columbus still in one piece, I was feeling pretty good that I wasn't going to have to pay for an extra day of rental at the "generously discounted rate" and I was pretty sure my ordeal was over. The guy checking me in even gave me a chance to vent about how I felt about Hertz which allowed me to bite my lip until it bled. Gosh I felt good! Then he gave me my receipt. Game over! The final damage... Approximately $330!

What! They had charged me for the original day AND the extra day that I didn't use. Of course the nice young man was unable to help me, but informed me that the manager was inside and I could talk to her. Lucky me. I will give credit where credit is due and say that this lady genuinely tried to help me. The problem was she had to call Baltimore to fix the problem. Remember? My contract was with them? After several minutes on the phone, she was told that they would have to generate the receipt in Baltimore and that they would fax it over to her when they finished getting the paperwork processed. The young lady in Columbus, realizing that I was very near "melt down" offered me a bottle of water to cool me off while I waited. I calmly declined and waited... and waited... and waited... Anybody ever read "Waiting for Godot"? Finally, I reached my limit and gave up. I told my new found friend behind the counter that I was done and would just wait for my credit card statement to show up. She assured me that I could go to Hertz.com in a "few days" to see my bill. She also informed me that my bill would be approximately $125... TOTAL!

The moral of the story: Give your customers a "Gold" card; treat them like crap and call it service; gouge them for every nickel you can when they are in a bind; make their request seem unreasonable; add insult to injury when the customer's experience is in the final mile; and finally, give them in the end what you should have given them at the start! Yes! Hertz has a better idea!

Plan for tomorrow, but live for today...

Planning for retirement is a journey, not a task. It is a dynamic process. It isn't over till the "fat lady sings". There are many things to plan for and many things to think about. When you think you have it all figured out, you think of something else. Is there a perfect plan? Nope! Do the best that you can. Educate yourself. Information is abundant. We have lots of resources to educate ourselves. The internet, books, our parents, relatives, friends, financial planners, and on, and on. You are not going to be perfect, but you can get on the sunny side of the moon if you don't keep your head buried in the sand. Open your eyes. Ask questions. Read. Learn. Act on what you know. The fact that you are thinking about it and talking about it and asking questions about it and most importantly, doing something about it, is what will make it the best that it can be. This process is not about perfection. It is about taking advantage of the resources that are available all around us and making the best decisions that we can with the information that we have. Live for today because there might not be a tomorrow. Plan for tomorrow because there might be one!

Blog - Make Money - Retire... Really?

Over the past several weeks I have become increasingly obsessed with blogging and the notion that one could actually earn a living from sharing their thoughts. I have read over and over the claims of other bloggers that they are making money hand over foot from blogging. I have perused the blogs relating experiences of bloggers quitting their day jobs because they are making so much money from blogging. I have not experienced any monetary success to date and it certainly is not due to lack of effort. I have tried AdSense, Project Wonderful, ClickBank, EntreCard, etc., etc. I have seen an increase in site visits over the past couple of weeks. That is probably due to the incessant dropping I have been doing on the EntreCard site and reciprocal drops I am receiving from other users. I know that people have to visit your site in order to generate any revenue. It is pretty bad when the last thing you do at night and the first thing you do each morning is to check to see if any of the tools being used have generated a revenue stream. It is an extremely addictive cycle and also very demoralizing when you see nothing but goose eggs in the total columns. I need to be careful that my blog's original purpose isn't compromised by the lure of the almighty dollar. I guess trying to earn a buck from blogging is okay as long as what you are blogging adds value to those that read it. I just wish I could find the secret combination that generates the best of both worlds. Making money by blogging would certainly be something that I could see myself doing to fill some of my free time when I retire. Is that a realistic goal? Are the claims I read about true? I am still trying to paint the vision in my minds eye. Any suggestions out there fellow bloggers / readers? I am all ears.

Touch all of the bases when calculating cost basis...

For those of you thinking about moving your finances to a financial planner be prepared to provide him or her with the cost basis for any stocks that you have. The cost basis of your stock is its purchase price adjusted for stock splits, dividends and return of capital distributions. This value is used to determine the capital gain, which is equal to the difference between your stocks cost basis and the current market value. Also known as "tax basis". Now one would think that even a haphazard record keeper would be able to come up with something as simple as the purchase price, but let me through you a curve. I have some stock that I have owned for over 15 years. I know what I paid for the original stock, but what threw a wrench into my calculations is the 15 years of reinvesting the dividends every quarter. That combined with the fact that the brokerage that held the stock for me changed hands 3 times, really muddied the water. If figured that finding the cost basis would be as simple as going to the old broker, pulling up my account and finding a button that I could click that says "cost basis". Nope! Not my friends at E-trade. I had to look through 15 years of archived statements to figure out what was what. I dug through their stuff and also through every box, file, nook, and crannie that I had at home stashed away in my attic. Talk about bats in the belfry! Mind you, I have moved 6 times since I bought the stock, so that in itself was quite painful. After several hours of hard work, I was able to get pretty close. I believe I have covered all of my bases. Don't let yourself get into the same predicament that I did.

Does paying off your mortgage early make good cents?

The question of the day is should you pay off your mortgage early? In speaking with my financial adviser, he advised against paying off my mortgage early. I have been making extra payments against the principle each month in hopes of paying off my house before I retire. It just felt like the right thing to do if I could pull it off. My adviser said that I should consider that the rate on my mortgage, 6.25%, is fairly cheap money. He felt that the extra being paid should be invested. There is a good chance that it can earn as much or more than the interest I am paying on the mortgage. I could agree with that, but was not convinced that I wanted to change my strategy. Where he sold me was when he reminded me that I only have a couple of years left to use my kids as a tax deduction. Once they are out of the nest, the mortgage deduction will be about the only big deduction I will have left. I might as well take advantage of that as long as I can. Uncle Sam gets enough of my money. I don't need to give him more. As long as my wife and I maintain the discipline of saving the money that we were paying down the mortgage with, I can live with my planners suggestion. It makes good cents and sense to me...

Dog food is bad for your health...

Over the past several months I have worked hard to drop a few pounds and get into better shape. I wasn't what I would call obese, but I was packing 220 pounds around on my 6 foot frame. I wasn't in very good shape for someone that wants to retire in a few years and enjoy it when he does. I was having a hallway discussion with a coworker that had lost some weight and he said he figured he had been walking around with the equivalent of a 30 pound bag of dog food draped over his shoulders. It was that visual that got me off my dormant duff and gave me the incentive to start investing some time into my health. With me, it was and is all about making a commitment to exercise and then having the integrity to keep that commitment. I hear people say they have integrity, but then they don't act with integrity when it comes to commitments they make to themselves. I had a treadmill sitting in my basement collecting dust and just waiting for me to make a date with it. I started out walking a mile 3 days a week. Walking, not running. Running beats my knees up too much. I gradually increased to 5 days per week and am now up to 3 miles per workout. Every now and then I go for 5. I walk at between 4 and 4.5 miles per hour and raise the incline from 3 to 4 degrees as I walk. For me the key is to sweat. If I sweat I feel good when I'm done. I have also tried to be more aware of what I eat. I try to stay away from junk food. I can't say that I have been on a diet, but I try to watch my portions. I eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast and have found myself looking at the labels on the food that I buy at the grocery. I don't deprive myself of anything, but I just don't go overboard. If I want chocolate, I eat chocolate. I just don't over do it. You are what you eat. I am currently fluctuating between 190 and 195 pounds. I want to get down to 185, but I seem to have reached a plateau. I feel good. No, I feel great. I actually had to go out an buy new pants with a smaller waist size. Wow! That felt really good and it only cost 1 bag of dog food! I want to retire, but I want to retire healthy. Investing for retirement is not just about the money. Investing in you health now will give you a better chance to enjoy that money when you get to the finish line. Start walking now for a better tomorrow.

Let's meet at the hacienda...

Well the time has come for me to unveil my wife's top 10 things she wants to do when she retires. I did not tell her what my top 10 things were until she had plenty of time to answer the question on her own. She does not read my blog, so her answers were not influenced by my answers. She did not make this experiment easy. She listed 5 things very quickly, but it took a lot of time to get her list up to 7. Trying to get her to list more than 7 items was like pulling teeth and for fear of me risking the loss of life and limb, I finally let her off the hook. Without further ado, here are her "7" top things to do when she retires in no particular order:

1. Travel to Europe
2. Vacation in St Thomas
   
3. Golfing
4. Leisure reading
5. Volunteer work
   
6. Part time job
7. Exercise

Okay! So what did we learn from this little experiment? Are we in trouble? Do we have work to do? I don't think we are in horrible shape, but yes we have work to do. There are some things where my wife and I are in alignment. Travel and golf are on both of our lists. She was quite surprised that I wanted to visit Ireland, and excited I might add. We have both always liked to play golf together, so golf on both lists is no surprise. The fact that she has a part time job and volunteer work on her list is indicative of her high level of energy and probably her knowing that she will be miserable if she has too much idle time on her hands when she retires. There is nothing wrong with that. If our lists were exactly alike, then I would say that we were definitely in trouble. I don't think being joined at the hip is necessarily healthy. Having identical lists would not have been the ideal result of this experiment. Communication between my wife and I about the really important things in our lives is an ideal result. No trick plays in the fourth quarter. We may modify our game plan before the end of the game, but we will be playing as a team. Bring on the competition!

What ingredients are in your recipe?

I previously made mention that it is important that during the planning of your retirement that you include your spouse. What a concept! You would think this would be automatic, but I will bet you that there are a lot of folks out there that have a mental model of what retirement will be that is nowhere close to the mental model their spouse has. That is a recipe for disaster. I guess there are lots of reasons that this might be the case. I think I know what my wife wants to do in retirement, but it is a topic we never quite get to and it always seems to get pushed off to another day. I guess because there is some finality in this type of discussion and because we think we have a long time before we actually retire, we see no hurry in getting this task completed. The reality is that retirement will be here before we know it. I am going to do a little experiment to see just how aligned my mental model of retirement is with my wife’s. Today I am going to list the top ten things that I want to do when I retire (at least I am going to try). I will then ask my wife to list her top ten things. I will not show her my list until she has completed hers. I will post her list later this week so you can all see how we stack up. I guess it will be obvious at that point if we have a wing and a prayer. Keep your fingers crossed...

My top 10 things to do in retirement – not in any particular order:

1. See a baseball game in every major league baseball statdium
2. Visit Ireland
3. Golf
4. Visit the grand kids often (I hope)
5. Vacation on the beach a couple of times a year
6. Have a get away in the mountains or off the beat and path where I can just gin around
7. Take a cruise in Alaska
8. Go back to Aruba
9. Buy a pontoon boat and fish
10. Live in a mild climate (no snow)

Stay tuned… Mrs. Sam is about to enter the building.

Consider time management for your Super Bowl...

Where did the weekend go? Back to work tomorrow. Judging from the new counter I installed on this blog, I have a few more days to go before everyday is a weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how fast weekends go by. They seem to be over in the blink of an eye. Why is that? I plan every minute of my work week. I use time management techniques to ensure that I am as efficient as possible. My weekends on the other hand, are for the most part experienced in free fall. So does that say I should plan my weekend and let the chips fall as they may during the week? Interesting concept. Planning buys me time during the week. Maybe it can help me extend my weekends. At least create the perception that I have more time. I think it boils down to planning creates the illusion of time. We all know that time is a fixed resource. We need to find ways to utilize the time we have available to its fullest extent. You know where I am going with this don't you? Yes, back to the retirement discussion. I think that time management will be a critical component to a fulfilling retirement. Free falling through retirement will be sure to diminish any feeling of self worth and accomplishment. Time management can help ensure that each day is lived with a sense of purpose. It may be more critical to manage ones leisure time than it is the time that is controlled by the structure of your job. Retirement is like the Super Bowl of life. You can bet that Tom Brady and Eli Manning both had a plan to manage every second they had the ball when they started last weeks big game. We should be prepared to control retirement with the same commitment. Sam says: Be ready!

Sams Says: Blogging is therapeutic

Just a few short weeks ago I was having quit a bit of angst over retirement planning. For what ever reason, I decided to blog to get all of the weight off of my shoulders. I never realized how heavy retirement could be, but believe me, I was feeling the weight. I am not sure why I thought blogging would be helpful. It was an epidemy. It just happened. I just started without any direction, no vision, no goal, no target, no nothing, nadda! And now, here I am. Blogging away! Therapeutic for me. Hopefully, helpful for someone else. Maybe just knowing that someone else is having the same thoughts and worries about making the wrong decisions. Maybe some of the decisions I have made aren't the best, but maybe they are. I am giving it my best shot. At the end of the day I will be better off for making some decisions instead of just not doing anything. It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

Top ten things to worry about before I retire...

Maybe if I list the things that are bothering me about retirement I will quit worrying about them. David Letterman, eat your heart out! Here are my top ten things to worry about before I retire. They are not in any particular order and I am more than willing to let you worry about them with me...

1. How much is enough money?
2. Will I live long enough to actually do it?
3. Will I be happy?
4. Will I be bored?
5. How much will health insurance cost?
6. Will I be healthy enough to get insurance?
   
7. Do I need to pay off my house first?
8. Will my 401K be worth anything?
   
9. Is social security really going to go bankrupt?
10. Do I need to move to a warmer climate?

I shouldn't have limited myself to ten. Does anybody out there worry about the same stuff that I do? Is this typical? Am I normal? Sam says: Don't worry. Be happy!

The Rule of 72 - What's in your wallet?

Have you ever heard of the "Rule of 72"? I had, but it was a very long time ago. Probably back in my college days. I probably wasn't paying close attention that day. When you are thinking about how much money you need to save in order to retire, it is helpful to know how fast your money can grow. The "Rule of 72" will let you quickly calculate an estimate of how long it would take any amount of money to double in value. All you need to do is take the number 72 and divide it by the interest rate you expect to get for your money. The result is a fairly close approximation of the number of years required to double your money. For example, if you have $25,000 in your savings account, and you expect to earn 8% interest on your money, then it should take approximately 9 years for the $25,000 to grow to $50,000. At 4% it would take 18 years to reach $50,000. This is a quick and dirty way to see the power of saving. It pays to invest your extra cash so that you take advantage of this growth opportunity . Let compounding interest pave your way to retirement. Sam says: "Whats in your wallet?"

Happy Ground Hog Day - Older and Wiser?

Today is Ground Hog day and it just happens to be my Dad's 80th birthday. Do you know what that means? No, it doesn't mean that we have to watch and make sure that he doesn't see his shadow (he didn't by the way). We will leave that up to Punxatony Phil and Buckeye Chuck. What it means is that he is getting older and it is making me realize that I am getting older too. Closer to retirement mind you, but older. I remember when 80 used to seem ancient. Now it doesn't really seem that far away. As we see our parents aging, we begin to feel our own mortality. This whole retirement thing is really shaking up my psyche. I know that I have a few years to go until I do retire, but less than 10 years I hope. With retirement comes a lot of good things, but also the unknown. Will I have my health? Will I even be alive. How dark is that thought? I guess that gives merit to what one of my friends used to say. "Life is short! Eat dessert first!" With that in mind, one can't forget about the rest of the meal. You need a good recipe for the main entre. A good chef will tell you that you must use all of the ingredients. Missing ingredients can ruin the whole meal. Don't get so wrapped up in planning for retirement that you forget some of the key ingredients. I know! One more thing to worry about.

Happy birthday Dad... Live long and prosper!