Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Glimpse Into A Different Life

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This week I’ve been given the rare opportunity to see what life would be like if I was without a family and lived in a different state.  My experience is similar to the movie “The Family Man“, but the opposite way.  Instead of giving up the rich life, I’m able to hang with the ultimate of my breed, where the not-quite-peers that I’m hanging with, make more in their bonus than what I make working in a year.  Today I’m going to share my experiences.

Ego is Everything:

I almost titled this line of observation: “Rise of the Uber-geek”, but really it’s just about ego.  The other company’s facility that I’m at also have very smart people working too there too.  The Uber-geeks in my party has no comment bounds.  So they are able to call out and ridicule our hosts for mistakes in a direct, but soft way.  Ironically, our hosts have dropped the ball a few times and the way my company is commenting on their performance, while demeaning, isn’t far from the truth.

The uber-geeks in my party are very open about what they think and don’t hold anything back.  They talk about others in our company without any restrictions.  I believe they do this with everybody they know, it’s very strange.

They live in large houses, make really good money, and have all the technical toys that I can only dream of.  They circumvent the regular rules at my company so they can do what they want when they think it… within reason.

I learned a few things from their lifestyle that I hadn’t realized or seen before that I’m going to describe below.

  • They specialize.  They are able to become masters of their core skill, but still pick up and learn other technologies at least at a surface level.  I would guess that they know 80% enough about other technologies to get by, but most likely spend 90% of their day working in the sphere of mastery.
  • They are great talkers and especially good with people, and very persuasive in a logical smooth talking way.  So they have mastered both technical, social and with a bit of knowledge about legal skills.  I would guess that the have a mastery of the skills to get them ahead in life.
  • They go outside their peer circle and talk to the business owners and schedules time with them, sometimes leaving their peers or subordinates high and dry (at least in my experience).
  • The rules don’t apply to them and they do whatever then want first then sell their prototype/ideas to their business partners.  Their business partners are in awe of them and give them special privileges.

All are nice, even though they are arrogant in a polite way. 

I consider myself luck to observe this experience, I’ve never seen this way of living in my line of work before.  It’s been educational to just by watching the individuals that I base my primary observations on.

Although I’m not them, I’m experiencing the same presentation, eating and sitting side by side with them.  Interestingly, for the most part, we are all from different states in the US.

As fascinating as the experience is, I’ll be glad to go back to the pre-glimpse existence.

Bests,

MR

How Independent Are We Really?

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What if

In my humble opinion, we are very dependent… on both public systems and businesses!

When I moved out of my parent’s house back when I was a teenager going to college, I thought that I was independent!  I felt like such a grown-up, making my way in the world, going to college to better myself.  Once I bought my first car and house, I had similar feelings.

Once I got my car and house paid off, I thought wow, I’m totally debt free, how independent I am.  I thought in 10 years, I’d totally be financially free, I’m such an independent guy!

Compared to most folks, I’m average, oh maybe I’m better with my finances than most (I’m so financially savvy), but similar in level of independence.

So I got the thinking, how independent am I, in the truest sense of the word?

Let’s pretend that the end of the world as we know it will happen in 2012 (hopefully not) and the world is destroyed, but many of us were still alive.  Barring some massive contamination of the earth, how independent would I be if there were no electricity, water or energy systems in place?  What if we were reduced to using manual tools and basic skills to survive?

I’m not going to discuss the transportation system, but everybody should realize that after a few years, those would begin to fall apart or get overgrown with vegetation.

Okay, so how would my family cope with the following concerns:

  • Water:  I would have to move immediately closer to a water source.  My house doesn’t have any pond or lake close by, and water would be a good thing to have!  Oh, I might stay in my house until the gas in my car runs out, but after than I would have to move closer to water!
  • Hopefully I can find a unoccupied house close to that water source above!
  • Food, pre-packaged food for me.  I don’t have a garden or even canned food that would last me longer than a week.  Ouch, I’m going hungry soon if I don’t figure out a food source.  Next year or whenever spring occurs, a garden would be top priority if I can find seeds!
  • I’ll miss wearing clothes (lol)!  Hopefully I can rummage though a clothing store of some sort, grabbing as much as I can!  if not then it’ll be deer skins for me (hopefully)
  • “Candles“, how are they made again?  Those would be gone in the store too, light is a good thing, I’ll miss that at night!
  • Boy, I’m already missing seafood… and pizza, and McDonalds (lol)
  • I hope my shoes last a long time!  I better stock up on those too.
  • Paper, pencils, pens, erasers – Welcome to the new/old version of the internet.
  • I hope my bed lasts a long time!  I hate sleeping on the ground!  I better grab more blankets, the winters will be much colder.  Perhaps I should move south too…
  • I don’t hunt, but apparently, I will now have too.
  • Dirt is now my friend since I don’t have running water for a shower and I can’t clean the carpet without a vacuum cleaner.
  • Sniff, I miss my nicely groomed lawn (sort of, nawwww)…
  • I better find some decent knives and sharpening stones!

Okay, I can keep going on, but obviously I’m very depending on society and the marketplace to provide the majority of my needs!

What dependent are you?  What would it be like if you didn’t have electricity, running water, sewage (oh yeah, the world would stink again), and grocery/department stores to provide your needs?

-MR

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Life After The Joneses Moved

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The neighbors directly across the street from us moved last year in June (2010) to a much larger house.  At first, I thought it was a foolish move and that I was glad I was staying put since I had just paid off my house and I no longer have a house payment. 

I wish I could telly you that I’m doing great now that they are gone.  But quite the contrary is true.  You see, now I’ve changed my mind, I miss our neighbors, they were friendly, good people.  The couple that moved in are much younger than we are.  The new neighbors are in their very early 20s, and they don’t have any kids yet.  My son and daughter miss the old neighbor’s kids too, they all played so well together.

Since my neighborhood has changed, I’m feeling the urge to move to a location where there are larger houses and more land.

So what does my urge to move have to do with the Joneses? 

Well, I honestly don’t think I would be wanting to move as badly if they were still across the street from us.  Oh sure, I’d still complain about the small yard and the smaller rooms, but as long as I knew my almost similar neighbors were in the same boat, I don’t think I would mind.  In fact, I’m sure I would be pretty content knowing that I no longer any debt.

So now I understand why the average person want to keep up with the Joneses, after all nobody likes being left behind.

So what am I going to do about it?

Nothing for now.  I like not having a mortgage payment to pay each month!  Besides, my kids are still happy with the neighborhood, even without the Joneses kids to play with.  But they are missed!

-MR

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10 Ways To Improve Your Chances To Become Rich

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Honestly, Are you trying to become rich?

I’ll admit there is more that I could do to try to breach the point where my passive income exceeds my expenses, but I choose not to.

Although I’m frugal, I’m quite sure that I could run an even tighter financial ship! 

Below is a quick list of ways that I could improve my chances to become rich:

  • I could use budgets and do extreme couponing to whittle my consumption expenses down much lower! 
  • I could try to get more free stuff via giveaways online.  Free stuff is great and believe it or not, it’s out there with some work.
  • I could create a budget to identify where my weaknesses are and plan to fix them accordingly!
  • I could get another job by working during a second shift period.  This would have a huge impact on my savings game since my first job covers all of my living expenses.  This means I could pocket almost all of my earnings from the second job.
  • I could try to expand my hobby activities into other forms of social media.  This could practically double my hobby income.
  • I could create a goals spreadsheet to track my saving goals and keep me on track…  This is more important than it sounds!  Feedback is a great thing!
  • I could create an investing goal to track my investments performance.  This could help determine if I should start investing more into index ETFs etc…
  • I could borrow tools/things from family, neighbors and friends more.  Why buy a sidewalk edger when I only use it once a year?
  • I could do a better job of reducing my taxes, a Roth IRA is a great vehicle to reduce taxes on dividends from stocks, etc.
  • I could do a better job of reducing my gas expenses, treat driving as a real expense instead of just ignoring it.

There are plenty other ways that I could improve my chances of becoming rich some day.  Surprisingly, I now realize that I”m only putting  in about half the effort that I should be putting into getting rich…

-MR

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