Posted by Canadian Dream on January 26, 2012
I’m currently on a business trip which I made the mistake of packing for at the last minute. While heading out the door I had the feeling that I was forgetting something, but could not determine what it was. So I left anyways.
After driving for an hour with that feeling I finally figured out missing: my dress shoes and my bag of all toiletries. So I had some time to determine what I was going to do about this.
The dress shoes I determined I was just going to live without. I had black hiking boots on in the car and some jeans. So I’ll skip my dress pants and wear the jeans to make due. I’m not buying a new pair of shoes for just two days.
The toiletry bag was more of a problem. I’m not going away for two days without brushing my teeth..ick. So I first went to the hotel to assess what they had in the room. I was somewhat in luck that they had a little tub of shaving cream along with the standard soap, shampoo, conditioner and hand cream. I also check the guest services list to see if they offer a program to offer a free…whatever…in case I forgot something. No luck there.
So I then tracked down the nearest drug store and went shopping. I skipped any of my usual products and strictly looked for the cheapest thing I could get (its just for two days so I live with it). I found a toothbrush on sale ($2) and travel size toothpaste ($1.29) and disposal razors ($4). So including tax I covered my mistake for $8. Overall not too bad.
Yet what stuck me about this entire event was how people tend to over pack as not to forget something when traveling. I forgot two fairly important things and it only cost me $8 and some minor inconvenience. If you stay flexible about your plans the reality is forgetting something is likely not a big deal. It will certainly cost you money for the odd mistake, but really carrying every little thing you may need is more of inconvenience with overly heavy bags in my mind.
So how about you? Do you pack light and accept the odd ‘oh crap’ moment or do you pack everything but your kitchen sink?
Posted by Dave on January 24, 2012
This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.
I am by far the last person to ask about specific investing advice (for now, I hope to change this in the near future). What I can tell you is what I am looking at right now in my future investment plan and why I am going to do it this way.
I have an undergraduate degree in Economics (which doesn’t really mean a whole lot, I do not claim in any way to be an Economist, but I sometimes remember some of the stuff I tried to learn in the four years of school I was paying for) – one of the main facets of Economics is an efficient market, whether it is in a labour market, commodity marketplace or in the case of investing stocks and bonds. The efficient market hypothesis (as it applies to stocks) basically states that prices reflect all known information available. A lot of investing books use this hypothesis to tout index funds, essentially saying “the market is efficient anyways, don’t try to beat it, just own it (through index investments)”. I generally agree with this, and think that index investing is right for most people – it’s safe (or relatively safe, as compared to either keeping cash under a mattress or picking stocks based on a hunch) and pretty easy to do, I just don’t want to do this.
I’m not eschewing index investing due to its simplicity – I’m pretty lazy and would enjoy something like a Couch Potato Portfolio, where I rebalance a few times per year and generally don’t worry about my investment otherwise, compared to a dividend portfolio of single stocks, which require constant monitoring. No, I’m going to invest in things that are going to pay me cash now, not later.
Why is having cash now important to me? There are a couple of reasons:
- I’ll need cash when I retire – a constant cash flow that comes from investments such as stocks, bonds and REITS will replace my salary at some point (hopefully). Having to sell off the stock itself does not seem like a good long-term plan to last through retirement. Dividends (or interest) paid out will allow me to own the original investment (which will hopefully appreciate).
- I don’t really trust the marketplace – This may seem like a silly reason to choose an investment, but for me I would rather have cash in my pocket now and see money coming in rather than investing in a company hoping to pull my money out at some future time. I realize that I am a little crazy for this, but rather than seeing the stock appreciate, I would rather take a portion of my investment off the table.
My first reason is perhaps a little more rational than the second, but they both work for my purposes. To me, investing has a lot to do with personal preference and these are mine.
Do you invest for capital gains, or cash flow, or a mix? How do you decide (or did you decide) on the type of investments you were looking for?
Posted by Canadian Dream on January 20, 2012
A large part of my financial success over the last three years has been the fact I’ve been working more than one job. When you have multiple streams of income coming into a household saving more just gets easier as those incomes keep going up. After all my basic spending hasn’t increased all that much despite the fact I’ve been earning more.
Yet 2012 marks a big decision point for me going forward. Do I try and run again for re-election this fall as a school board trustee or let the term close out and focus more on writing? After much internal debate over the holiday season and planning I’ve made a big decision.
First off, I should provide some context for this. Let me first say, being a politician at any level is likely one of the hardest jobs there is. If you do your job right, things work well and you likely don’t get one ounce of credit. Then other times you do the right thing in your mind and you might even come out looking like a villain in the media. Regardless of that, you also get to miss a lot of time with my family attending meetings. Not to mention you never had all the facts and frankly you often aren’t a expert in that area at all when you make a decision. In a nut shell, there are significantly easier ways for me to earn money with a lot less stress. In fact I can fill out one form at my day job and get an instant 10% raise for less time than I put into my board work. So the following decision isn’t about the money.
Yet despite the public abuse at times, I feel like I did get some things done over my last 2.5 years on the board like finally get a focus on student achievement and I still have things I would like to finish. As such I will step up and try to run for a second term this fall during the next election. Even if this means a four year term this time, I will to serve if the public will have me.
