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Saturday Morning Dump: I Like Links

 Saturday Link Dump  10 Responses »
Apr 302011
 

For those of you who are regulars around here, you’ll know I’ve been trying to lose some weight over the past few months. I started at a ungodly fat 268.8 pounds back at about the end of January. Over the months, I’ve been slowly knocking off the pounds, getting closer and closer to my goal of 220 pounds. I know that all of you literally sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for Saturday to come so you can get your update on the weight loss of some guy you’ve never met.

Well, wait no more! I have conquered fatness!

I promptly celebrated by eating a giant cheeseburger, fries and hot fudge sundae. I ate the crap out of those things and they were delicious.

Now that I’ve cracked the 220 pound level, I’m ditching my glasses in favor of contacts. You can buy contacts these days that you wear continuously for 30 days, meaning they’re perfect for a lazy guy like me. Like most things, contacts are much cheaper if you buy them online, so I’ll be doing that. Maybe I’ll even treat you guys to a post about how much cheaper contacts are online.

Random Thing I Enjoyed This Week

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I took a blogging break for a week, meaning there was no link dump last week.

While you probably didn’t enjoy it, (after all, there was no me in your pitiful little life) I really enjoyed a weekend of not being plugged in. While technology and blogging and whatnot has made my life better in just about every way, sometimes you just gotta take a break from it all. I took the opportunity to spend time with my family and friends, and to eat a pretty delicious Easter dinner. So that was nice.

Random Thing That Irritated Me This Week

My fellow chip jockey has been on holidays over the past two weeks, and the company sent out a replacement guy for him. And replacement is probably the nicest word I can use to describe him.

What a lazy guy. All he cared about was doing the minimum amount of business he could, and then getting the hell out of town. Since I go to a lot of the same stops he does, I was left selling in lots of chips to make up for him. And he was actually a good guy. If he wouldn’t have been so lazy, I probably would have actually liked him. Instead, I want him to never come back again.

Song I Like And Therefore You Should Too

I just want to say I liked The Arcade Fire before they won all those Grammys. Now that they have and everybody knows who they are, I kind of don’t like them anymore. They were my little secret, the band I liked that nobody had heard of. Everybody knows who they are, so I’m not unique in liking them anymore.

It’s funny their third album was the one that won all the Grammys, since the first two are clearly better. Their first album is about as good as music gets. Stop reading this right now and go buy it.

Simpsons Quote Of The Week

Fat Tony: I don’t get it. Everybody likes the rats, but nobody likes the rat’s milk.

Blogging Snack of The Week

One of the local grocery stores has pretzels. No big deal, right?

What if I told you there was peanut butter inside? They are every bit as delicious as I would have thought. If you get the chance, I’d recommend eating them. Or, taking off your shirt and covering your chest in pretzels. I may or may not have done that.

Sports TV You Should Watch This Week

I don’t even know why anyone wouldn’t be watching sports this weekend.

There are multiple baseball, basketball and hockey games on this weekend. Both hockey and basketball’s playoffs have been pretty decent so far. How good were the game sevens between Chicago/Vancouver and Boston/Montreal? Both games were super tight, with both going to overtime.

I entered a hockey pool, picking only guys from Nashville and Boston. I’m going to finish in either last place or first. Either way, it’s gonna be spectacular.

Blogging Babe Of The Week

As soon as you guys saw the picture of Money Rabbit on the National Post’s website, you knew I was going to have fun with it.

I was contacted by the guy from the National Post. I emailed him back, and then heard NOTHING. I’m guessing the problem was that I wanted to do a email interview, and it sounds like he did phone interviews with the girls. Since I hate talking on the phone, I prefer to communicate via email, especially to someone I don’t know.

Anyhoo, here’s the picture of Money Rabbit that the Post took. Money Rabbit, call me. Oh, wait. Maybe e-mail me instead.

Creepers like me have even more clues towards Money Rabbit’s identity. But wait. What’s that in the background?

OH NO! HE’S FOLLOWED MONEY RABBIT INTO THE HOUSE! OH MY GOD! QUICK, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Oh Right, Time For Links

Holy Potato has a great post about blogging anonymously and the brand even an anonymous blogger creates. We all have identities online, and my identity as Financial Uproar is just as important as anyone’s identity. Great post.

Echo is going to be moving soon. No word on whether I’ve been invited to his housewarming party at the new house, but I’ll probably show up anyway. Someone has to bring the chips.

Andrew Hallam is a better man than you or I. He’s not about to let a little thing like cancer get him down. Read his inspiring story about beating cancer and then finishing 3rd in a race of 11,000 people.

I haven’t listened to this podcast from PT Money about self publishing and selling Kindle books, but I’m definitely interested.

Rachelle from Landlord Rescue really knows her stuff when it comes to investment real estate. She has a great detailed post about the pitfalls of owning rental property.

Canadian Capitalist doesn’t care for Garth Turner’s advice. Garth Turner is pretty entertaining, but his advice isn’t really well thought out sometimes.

Canadian Mortgage Trends calls out a RBC mortgage rep who issued a leaflet that bashed mortgage brokers. What’s much more interesting than the actual article is the comments. I find mortgage agents in general overestimate their professionalism compared to banks. I like brokers, I used to be one for goodness sakes. I just think, like real estate agents, they need to realize they’re not the only way to get a mortgage.

Jim from Retire Happy talks about the importance about being debt free when you retire. I’d personally file that under the “well, duh” category, but the fact is that many retirees have debt these days.

Carnivals This Week

None. Did you expect any different?

Have a good week everyone.

 Posted by Nelson Smith at 12:15 am

Obsessed About Money

 Big Picture Stuff  15 Responses »
Apr 272011
 

I’ve been accused of being obsessed about money in the past. My sister and her husband once accused me of being a heartless bastard who cared about nothing but money. While I disagreed with the heartless bastard part, I had to admit thinking about money dominates my thoughts at times. I think about investing. I think about minimizing my expenses and increasing my earnings. I spend time on Twitter discussing money with people. I’m usually thinking of either money, sports or boobs. I quite enjoy those three things.

Is my obsession with money a bad thing? At what point should I take a step back and stop worrying about money so much?

Meet David

Like that time I talked about the old man who works at Wal-Mart, I’ve got another money story that’ll bum you out a little. If you need cheering up, I’d recommend one of my Saturday Link Dumps. They’re usually pretty funny.

Unlike Leonard though, I don’t have to hide any details of his life. David was kind enough to tell his story to the LA Times. I bet all of you twenty bucks that he’s gonna regret it once he reads the comments. Wow, people are mean when hiding behind anonymity on the internet.

Since you’re all clearly too lazy to click through to the Times’ story, let me give you the juicy parts:

Schoolteacher David Moehlman has a money problem.

He has a lot of it — more than $1 million in savings accounts and mutual funds, plus half a million or so in real estate. And he has no debt.

Moehlman, 44, didn’t amass the vast majority of this nest egg through an inheritance or other windfall. He worked hard and made some good investments.

And he took savings to an extreme. For example, he eats breakfast and dinner every day at fast-food places where he always orders off the $1 menu, and lunch is usually a 75-cent microwave burrito.

At first glance, he seems just like another cheap guy, albeit one that can’t cook. But his story gets more sad.

He has a car, but it comes out of the garage only a couple of times a year. Otherwise he rides a motorcycle to save on gas. When the weather turns rainy and cold, he dons a snowsuit for riding.

But he worries constantly about money — especially that he will not have enough for retirement — and has made saving a center of his life.

“If I had $10 million I wouldn’t live any differently because spending money doesn’t make me happy,” said Moehlman, who lives in Moreno Valley. “I don’t know where it comes from, but I’ve always been this way.”

Most people would give their right pinky finger to have a nest egg the size of David’s. Yet he constantly worries he doesn’t have enough for retirement. Apparently he’s forgotten about the generous teacher pension he’s going to get.

Moehlman’s life has been marked by family tragedies. His two brothers were killed in separate traffic accidents. His father had a stroke and requires round-the-clock care.

The schoolteacher was married at one point, but his extreme saving habits contributed to the relationship ending in divorce.

He said he had dreams of retiring at age 55 or earlier and moving to Mexico or Ecuador for the more affordable lifestyle. He thought it could mark a new beginning.

“I think it would be good for me,” he said. “It would get me out of my box.”

But now he is the only sibling left to help take care of his father.

This situation is clearly not good. I’m not a psychologist, but David obviously has some pretty serious issues going on. Most people save up money so they have the freedom to partake in luxuries. David seems to be on some sort of quest to constantly add to the pile that is his net worth.

People Don’t Want To End Up Like David

There are cheap people out there and there are frugal people. David makes cheap people look like Donald Trump.

We all know David is too extreme in his saving. His lifestyle has actually driven people away from him who once loved him. This is unequivocally bad. David’s results are impressive, we just don’t agree with his methods. He’s achieved financial freedom, but at what cost?

Now put yourself in the shoes of your friend or family member who don’t give two craps about money. They look at you making your own laundry detergent (or whatever odd thing you do to save money) and think you’re absolutely insane. To them, we’re all just a bunch of Davids.  We’d all quickly step up and say David is the crazy one, that we have balance in our lives. But do we really, when so much of our time and energy are spent obsessing about dollars and cents?

Ultimately, these types of decisions are the personal part of personal finance. It’s up to you to decide whether you take your frugality too far. There’s a line in the sand you’ve drawn at some point, and you refuse to cross it. Maybe you refuse to shop at thrift stores. Maybe you refuse to live in your parents’ basement past a certain age. Or maybe you’re not above eating from the dollar menu every day. And while that line might seem normal to you, it would repulse someone who takes money far less seriously.

Are You Normal?

When it comes to money, I am certainly not normal. I’ve tried all sorts of crazy schemes to make extra cash and to save cash.

As I get older and more mature, I realize life is about more than just the money. I want to become wealthy and to build my passive income up. I want to pay off the mortgage on my house so I have somewhere to live for next to nothing. There are all sorts of financial dreams I still want to achieve.

Yet there are all sorts of dreams I want to achieve that cost money. I want to travel. I want to meet that special someone and grab her boobs repeatedly. I want little Uproars running around, just as long as they don’t bug me while the Jays are on. While having money makes these dreams much easier to accomplish, these are definitely activities that cost money.

At what point does a saver switch and start to spend their money? Where is the proper balance between planning for the future and living for today? No matter where you are on the savings spectrum, these are questions you must ask yourself. And maybe us savers are a little closer to being David than we’d like to admit.

 Posted by Nelson Smith at 11:16 pm

Should People Sell Their Homes And Rent?

 Real Estate  6 Responses »
Apr 272011
 

Tweet About a year ago, on this very blog, I began to pound the table on a real estate correction that I thought was imminent in Canada. All the signs were there- frothy valuations, (currently at over 5 times average income) record low interest rates, a sputtering economy, as well as two markets that are, by all metrics, ridiculously overvalued. Those markets Read More [...]

 Posted by Nelson Smith at 1:21 pm

How Investing Is Like Fantasy Baseball

 Big Picture Stuff, Contrarian Investing, Stocks  5 Responses »
Apr 192011
 

Tweet I think I’m one of only about 12 hardcore baseball fans in Canada. Krystal joins me as a fan, meaning there are only 10 more people in the entire country that would rather watch the Blue Jays than the Maple Leafs. Another one of those guys is my buddy, who is a little obsessed with the sport that unfolds Read More [...]

 Posted by Nelson Smith at 8:48 am

The Economics Of Strip Clubs

 Sex and Money  10 Responses »
Apr 182011
 

Tweet I’ve never actually been to a strip club before. I have watched strippers when they came and performed at a bar here in town once, which wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be. I certainly wasn’t going to pay a girl $20 to rub up against my crotch for 3 minutes while all my buddies hooted Read More [...]

 Posted by Nelson Smith at 12:15 am
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