Category Archives: Inspirational

The Shawshank Redemption – A Personal Finance Story

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Shawshank Redemption – A Personal Finance Story

I just finished watching the The Shawshank Redemption after buying it at Target for $5.00 (money very well spent)!  I’ve seen it many times before, but it’s a great movie and worth watching again and again!

This article about The Shawshank Redemption – A Personal Finance Story will be a spoiler if you haven’t seen the movie.  And if you haven’t seen the movie, please do so…  I think you will find that it’s worth it since it is the top ranked movie of all time (according to IMDB.com top 250 movies).

Unusual Setting

If you were to tell me that I would like a movie about a successful, honest, good person wrongfully accused of killing his wife and her lover and that during the movie he would repeatedly get brutally gang-raped, I would have said you’re nuts!

I would have thought it was a documentary that was going to depress the hell out of me!  But I was wrong!  I watch the movie after it was recommended by a friend that said it was better than it sounded (I missed it when it came out in the theater…).  And she was right!

Hope – The Magic of the Story of The Shawshank Redemption

Andy the main character loses his wife, money, job, becomes imprisoned, get repeatedly brutally ganged raped (which thankfully we don’t see), has a good friend shot, and more than once gets beat so bad that he has to be in the infirmary for long periods.

Doesn’t sound like the typical uplifting movie, does it?  But it is.  The thing that makes “The Shawshank Redemption” different is hope, a solid plan, and perseverance.  I have to admit, Morgan Freeman (one of my favorite actors) being in the movie sure doesn’t hurt the story either!

The Center of the Story

All these bad things happened to Andy and yet, in the end, he ended up free, in paradise with more money than at least the top 2% of the U.S. population for that time period.  You’d think being in prison this couldn’t happen to Andy, but in the story it did!  You see, Andy was smart and even in prison, he had value.

He displayed this value to one of the officers for a bucket of beer to share with friends while doing a roofing job, and eventually, he was doing the tax returns for the entire prison, including the warden.  Eventually, the warden wanted more from Andy.  So Andy started helping the warren to skim off of the top and make it so that the transactions weren’t traceable to the warden!

Then one day, potential evidence come up by another prisoner that Andy was innocent!  The warden pissed Andy off by ignoring this information and killing the prisoner that was Andy’s one ticket out of the joint.  Andy had a contingency plan, and after a few more months escaped, withdrawing the warren’s corrupt money, and sent the paperwork incriminating the warden to various agencies causing the warden to take his own life in the end.

Inspiration from The Shawshank Redemption

  • Always look for opportunities, and if they don’t exist make your own, not matter how far-fetched!
  • Never give up, even when you are living in hell.
  • Always believe in yourself, even when others are saying “No it’s not possible”.  Or tell you to give it up.
  • Focus on your main plan and have a contingency plan!  Meticulously work away at it small bites (or rock chips) at a time!
  • Make friends, and have a good support system.  It doesn’t have to be huge, just big enough to get accomplished what you are striving to do.
  • Respect others, no matter what their educational, social or intelligence levels.  They can still be beneficial to you in ways unforeseen and you can benefit them too.  Not to mention having fun times sometimes.
  • Give the above line, still, try to find a group with similar thoughts and ambitions.
  • Sometimes you can make change happen just by being sociable and taking intelligent risks.  But it can be dangerous (Andy almost got thrown off of a roof), but when you don’t have much to lose, it could be well worth it!
  • Andy is the proverbial turtle (albeit with a ball and change attached) in a race with a bunch of invisible, free hares.  Andy found a short cut that enabled him to beat the hares he never sees.  Sometimes, being unconventional works, if it makes sense and you continually work at it.
  • Hope and a solid plan can make a huge difference as you go through life.  Make the best of it even when the setting is less than optimal.

The Shawshank Redemption, the Perfect Personal Finance Story

Everybody loves “Fight Club” (including me), but while a great story, that’s not the answer, and if it ever did happen, we all would suffer greatly for it.

Not so with the Shawshank story!!! 

You see, indirectly, The Shawshank Redemption is about financial freedom!  The main character goes through hell, but through paying attention and taking advantage of opportunities (and seeking out those opportunities), Andy escapes from prison and becomes financially independent.

Yes, it’s an unconventional way to become financially independent, but isn’t the path of entrepreneurship the same kind of unconventional road?

There are similarities between us working stiffs stuck in a cubicle, or an assembly line, or whatever and the prisoners being in prison!

Even the example of Brooks demonstrates Andy’s superior financial acumen!  Brooks just kind of drifted through prison not trying to improve anything including himself, much like many of us do in our working lived.  We do the status quo and just skim by.  Eventually, he retires from the prison and then retires from life.  Sad, but similar to many that retire later in life and just fade away.

But Andy had a contingency plan, one that enabled him to escape from prison and become financially independent.

If you’ve seen the movie, do you see any similarities be Andy’s story and becoming financially independent?  Or am I in left field on this one?

 -MR

To read about  The Shawshank Redemption – Lessons Learned, clicking here.

Wealth Tips # 6 – Trying Harder To Become Wealthy

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My Wealth Tips #6 is all about trying harder to become wealthy!

All to often when it comes to wealth creation, the middle class group thinks that it’s all luck when it comes to generating wealth.  Or that you have to be a top socially gifted, genius like Bill Gates to be able to create an incredible complex company like Microsoft to make you rich.

I’m here to say, it’s not so!  For one, you don’t need the kind of money a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates has!  For us normal middle class folks, we should just try to get to the level of wealth where our passive income (money from dividends, rents, etc), is a bit more than our expenses.

Now you might be thinking, how? 

Well, luckily in the Yakezie blogging network, we have a few excellent examples!  One such example is the blogger named Jeff at Deliver away Debt, who had obtained a massive amount of debt (over $100,000) but has been able to reduce his debt down to $50,000 in the time period of a year and a few months!  Now you might wonder what was his amazing income stream that helped accomplish this?  He delivered pizzas, and lived very frugally.

Wait, what does debt elimination have to do with wealth creation?

Well, let’s imagine that Jeff continues working side jobs and keeps his frugal ways after his debt is totally paid off.  If he applied the same discipline, that would mean that he was able to save about $40,000 a year, so in a 10 year timeframe, he should be able to accumulate about 1/2 a million dollars if he were to earn a 7% interest yield!!!

Amount Interest
Saved Rate Earnings
$40,000 3.50% $1,400
$81,400 7.00% $4,298
$125,698 7.00% $7,399
$173,097 7.00% $10,717
$223,814 7.00% $14,267
$278,081 7.00% $18,066
$336,146 7.00% $22,130
$398,276 7.00% $26,479
$464,756 7.00% $31,133
$535,889 7.00% $36,112

Not to shabby!!!

At Money Reasons, I’m trying to do exactly that.  This is one of the main reasons I joined the Millionaire Club, I hope to have a net worth of 1 million dollars in 10 years!

So look for opportunities to become wealthier, even if they are small opportunities.  If you go the extra mile like Jeff does above… you might just surprise yourself!

-MR

Tricking Yourself Into Success In Life

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Success in life is difficult without the correct upbringing and opportunities. 

Some are born into this type of environment, so they will have great success in life just by living in their parent’s home.  While I’m not sure if it’s good to be raised in such an environment (sometimes, it seems stressful), I do know that many of those kids will grow up to be the very successful.

While I had an excellent childhood for learning about frugality and the dangers and proper uses of credit cards, the drive for being successful was lacking.  Perhaps it was because my family was too busy running a business.  I would spend a lot of time with babysitters, and was even shipped off to Delaware in the summer to spend time with my aunt and uncle. 

While overall, my experience growing up was good, it didn’t really help me develop that killer instinct that is so critical in being a successful entrepeneur and employee.  Nor did it teach me to really stick to one thing, everything was in a constant state of change for me.

So as you can imagine, when I started college I didn’t have the training I really needed to excel.  so what did I do?

I tricked myself (really a form of brainwashing) into being successful!

In computer science, after I got past the freshman and sophomore years of college, the classes got very hard (actually all of the computer classes were difficult, with the failing rate as high as 80 to 90% for some classes).

So when I knew all my friends were out partying, I would get depressed trying to read complex programming textbooks.  Many times, I would want to say “forget this” and go out with my buddies.  So I had to develop some coping mechanisms which I will outline below.

Here is what I would do:

  • I would imagine that I was in prison and there was nothing else going on.  This was easy when I lived in a bachelor’s pad.
  • I would mimic the voice of friends that were foreigners in my classes just to encourage a different perspective and pronunciation.  Hey, it works!!!
  • I would take resting breaks where I would lay in my bed and close my eyes and let the solutions come to me.  This was much better than beating my brains all during the day, and then only to figure it out after I went to sleep that night.
  • I would implement a crude reward system.  For example, if I finished writing  a computer program, then I would go out with friends for the evening (or later that week).

Later, after getting my foot in the door at my various employers, I would use similar tricks.  But this time, I would focus on the work and ways to make it more enjoyable.  So at work, I viewed each problem and project as a puzzle or I would pretend that I’m the only one that could figure the issue out (like in a detective). 

It just takes little changes on the way you view the task at hand, to make that task enjoyable.

These are just some of the techniques that I use to create a sense of motivation for myself.

Readers, do you use any special tricks that make you more of a success in life?

-MR

Maximizing Time By MultiTasking Tasks More Wisely

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not me, lol

I remember when I first tried to do multitasking, I got overwhelmed.

I think I was trying I update two different computer applications by inputting data in parallel; I was switching back and forth like a madman inputting data between them.  You see, back then it took a while for changes to happen to a document so after each saving; it would take a few seconds for the save to complete, giving me time to do a similar process on the other application.  I eventually got it done after a few boggled up sessions, and fixes…  I’ve learned from experience, that this isn’t the best type of multi-taking!!!

However, as I’m typing this, I’m actually doing two things at the same time!  I’m waiting in my car in the middle school parking lot for my son to get out of school on his first day back to school, and obviously, I’m also typing this post!

Yep, I’m multi-tasking the correct way!  Multitasking more than one task primarily works best when you have one or more task that don’t require much thinking, paired with only one task that requires you to focus on it a higher degree of attention.

So now that you know my belief around an optimal multitasking system…  You may also be wondering what other ways do I maximize time by multitasking more wisely?

Following are my favorite ways to multitask:

Listening to audio books while driving to work.  This enables me to optimize my driving time which previously would have been wasted time taken out of my life to drive to my place of employment!  My total commute time, both to and from work per day, averages about 1 hour and 15 minutes (on a normal day).  So that adds up to 6 hours & 15 minutes I was wasting per week doing nothing but driving mindlessly to work!

At first I tested the waters by listening to a CD I borrowed from the library while driving to work.  This worked out great!  Next I progressed to Stephen King novels, again this was successful!  Then I started listening to classic audio books that I would never listen to, famous novels like “Animal Farm” and “1984”.  I even listened to classics that I’ve never heard of before, such an example would be the Ray Bradbury book, “Fahrenheit 451”.

Listening to audio books while driving on vacation trips.  Now you may be wondering what the difference is between this and “Listening to audio books while driving to work”?  The difference is that listening to such books while driving on vacation trips keeps me awake and delays drowsiness! I’ve only listen to audio books that are very entertaining and exciting enough to keep me awake!

After my recent vacation, I used this technique to drive home at night.  Listening to “Insomnia”  (ironic huh) by Stephen King, kept me awake.  It was a real driving aid, because prior to listening to audio books on vacation trips, I would start to fall asleep after a few hours.  Plus I hated driving!

Now, with the help of a good audio book, I can honestly say that I enjoy the driving part of the trip too!  This was a huge win-win for me!!!

Reading books while waiting in offices.  Hate waiting for the doctor or dentist in the waiting room?  Read a book while waiting in the office!  I find good biographies (examples like Benjamin Franklin or Warren Buffett) really fill this void!  With a biography, the story is a bit drying and anticlimactic, and you can pick up the book weeks later and not miss a beat.

These are some of the ways that I maximize my time by multitasking…

What are your favorite example of tasks that you like to pair together when you multitask?

-MR