Everybody Loves Your Money

Thank god you can still become a millionaire if you are lazy. It’s going to take me a little longer than I’d like, but I’m on track. Lately, I’ve been trying to come up with some alternate sources of income. The “passive” income that so many of the PF bloggers out here talk about. The appeal of earning money while I’m sleeping is just too much to take. For someone who is lazy like me, earning money while you sleep is as sexy as a supermodel with a maxed out 401K.

So, I’ve thought up a couple doozies. One of which I think has the potential to be a killer APP. But you know what? Ramit, over at I will teach you to be rich, has me figured out. I have managed to throw up so many barriers to actually trying this, that I’m not likely to go anywhere with it. Make no mistake, starting a successful business is hard work. There aren’t too many examples of people getting rich quick with no effort, although I’m sure there are a few seminars coming to a motel near you that would beg to differ with me.

Here I sit. Grinding out my work day. Thinking about all the non-work type activities I’d like to do. My poor ideas. Stuck in a wasteland called my mind.

Luckily, saving money isn’t nearly as tough. I mean, heck. You can save money without even trying these days. Take my 401K. All that money automatically goes in to an account for me every two weeks, and my company matches it. Even my ROTH contributions happen automatically, although it was a bit of a pain to set up in the beginning. Luckily, it wasn’t too painful or I might have given up on that too. Phew. Even writing this blog takes work. I must enjoy it, otherwise I’m sure I would have given up on it by now.

I got this in my email today. Someone must be falling for these scams or they wouldn’t keep sending them out. I’m going to pass on this, but thought I’d post it here for your reading pleasure. Wow, a 40% cut. That’s pretty generous of him.

Dear Friend

Greeting to you my dear friend, I am sending you this mail regarding
the 31st October 1999 Egyptian airline Flight 990

My name is Peter Boltton, the personal assitance to the late Mr.and
Mrs. Lenor.R. Burson Citizens of the United States of America My
Boss and his wife died in an air crash on the 31st October 1999 in
an Egyptian airline 990 with other passengers like 62 Egyptians,22
Canadians,3 Syrians,2 Sudanese and 1 Chilean on board.You can
confirm his death from the website below which was published by
BBC WORLD NEWS. WEBSITE.
americas/502503.stm

Unfortunately Two of them lost their lives Since that day I have made
several enquiries to several Embassies to locate any of my Boss’s
extended relatives, Which I have waiting for them since than, this has
also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts,
I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet to locate any member
of his family,i could not locate any of the reatives,hance i contacted
you

I contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left
behind by my Boss and his wife, since I have no place to locate any
of his relatives. I can easily convince his bank in the with my legal
practice that you are the only surviving relation of my Boss. Otherwise
the Estate he left behind will be confiscated or declared unserviceable
by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged.

Particularly, my late Boss had an account with one of the banks Europe.
Valued at about US$5.3Million (Five Million Three Hundred Thousand
United States Dollars) which I witness the documentations before he
left for the states on 2nd Feb 1999.

Consequently, The bank issued me a notice to provide the next of kin
to my Boss since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives. I
seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased
so that the proceeds of this account valued at US$5.3Million (Five Million
Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) will be paid into your
account and then you and I can share the money. 55% to me and 40% to
you, while 5% should be for expenses, tax as your government may require.

I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any
claim we may make. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable
us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under
a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach Of the
law. I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one
apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that everything
documents that will bring about the Success of this transaction would
be provided.

Reply immediately.

Yours Faithfully,

Peter Boltton

N.B. Please indicate your telephone and fax numbers
for easy communication in this mutual transaction.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the backyard of a hermit, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about “sourcing”, or “globalization”. I’m reading a book called “The world is flat” (yes, I’m still reading it. I’m going to finish it soon). I mentioned, previously, that this book talks a lot about how our world economy is changing and all the forces that are impacting it. The reality is that this isn’t your grandfather’s economy any more. It’s never been more important to put some thought in to what you do today, and what you should be doing tomorrow.

Jobs such as computer programming used to be thought of as “careers”. Once you had the skills and got the job, you were set for life. Just put your time in each day at the company and you could expect a nice fat salary, pension, 401K, and health care in retirement. That’s not the case any more. More and more jobs are now in scope for moving out of the country to lower wage areas. Here is just a small list of jobs that are going overseas:

-Computer programming
-Telemarketing
-Basic accountant services
-Tax returns
-Radiology analysis
-Business process automation
-Technical support
-Product support

Basically, any service that doesn’t need to be performed in a localized fashion is ripe for global sourcing. With the advances in technology, more and more things like data and images can be quickly moved across the wire and used to perform the work in another location.

What kinds of jobs are safe from being sourced globally? Any job that has to be performed in a local area. Below are some examples:

-Automotive technician
-Police, Fire, Ambulance
-Direct health care
-Government
-Security related jobs, such as computing security or physical security
-Construction jobs

You get the idea. Jobs that are localized to their core are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to source globally. How about the McDonald’s drive thru employee? That sure seems like something that has to be staffed locally. Well, not necessarily. Just when you think it seems pretty obvious which jobs are capable of being sourced globally, a curve ball like this comes at you. Sure, they need someone to hand you the food, but the person that takes your order can be across town, across the country, or across the world.

So, what can we do? Just like you should always be planning your financial future, you also need to plan your employment future. Are you in a job that is easily sourced? Do you sit at your screen all day analyzing data? If so, you should start asking yourself, “What makes me unique? Why can’t this company move my job somewhere else?” “What types of skills are not easily found in other countries, or companies?” One answer to this is company knowledge. Do you understand the requirements of your customers? Do you understand the core competencies of your company? These are the types of skills that aren’t easily sourced in this country, or any other country. The intimate knowledge you have of your customers, company, and competitors gives you an edge.

It’s not an easy subject to think about but it’s critical to consider how you are positioned for a rapidly advancing global economy, and whether you have the skills to compete. It’s no secret that “up and coming” employees in other countries are hungry for prosperity and your job. Are you as hungry as they are? You better be.

Every now and then I like to bring back a post from long ago for newer readers that haven’t browsed through the depths of ELYM. I could make up some corny story about how the posts have contacted me in my sleep asking for more attention, but, I won’t because that really is corny. So, just check out the links and pretend you are interested:

Lifestyles of the Not so Rich and Famous
Sometimes it’s better to rent an asset than own it.

Free Things on the Web that are Cool
I love free things on the web, especially when they are useful.

What Would Happen if Everyone Saved 10% of their Income?
It’s a heck of a question. What do you think? What would happen to our economy?

Teach your Kids to be Smart with Money
Just what it says. You have to lead by example.

How many ways can you make a cheap phone call these days? A LOT of people use their cel phone minutes to make long distance calls. I’m not a huge fan of doing that simply because it seems like every tenth word doesn’t come through very well.

So, what to do, what to do. You can be like me and sign up for Vonage and get a little extra life out of your broadband connection. And since Comcast has raised my speed up to 6 megabit, I’ve got lots to use. Too bad they wouldn’t take me up on my offer to give me a slower connection for less money. Anyway, Vonage turned out to be one of those decisions that you realize you made incorrectly, after the fact. I haven’t used Vonage NEARLY enough to justify it’s cost. It’s been nice to have a second line, but we aren’t using nearly enough minutes. Luckily I opted for their cheap plan of $15 per month for 500 minutes instead of their unlimited. I reasoned that I probably wouldn’t even reach 500 minutes and if I did, their per minute cost would have still allowed me to talk for almost 750 minutes before I reached the cost of an unlimited plan.

So, I’ve decided to cancel my Vonage account. Instead, I’m going to use my Skype account and just put $10 in. That will give me 500 minutes of Skype “out” calls (where I can call any regular phone from my PC, including England) and no monthly charge. I’ve tried it and the quality is better than Vonage. I have a great small headset for use with it and Googletalk.

Ahhhhh. Thank goodness. I got everything squared away on the old site and it now links to this site. The best part is that all those other links out there will now work indefinitely. I’m going to stop posting at the other site and will only be posting here from now on.

I expected a few glitches, but they still aren’t fun when they happen…….

Uggghh.
After setting up this new blog with my own domain, I went through the process of moving all my old posts from http://elym.blogspot.com over here. I got them all, but without comments. Unfortunately, that isn’t the worst of it. After publishing them here, blogger decided I must not need my elym.blogspot.com domain and took it away. Now I don’t have the ability to redirect people here from the old address and it has killed every link out there to me. This qualifies as a full fledged sucky situation. I opened up a ticket with blogger about this and got a reply saying that they are sorry I’m having trouble with “comment word verification” What??? I replied, but, I’m not feeling very good about getting this back up.

So, if you are reading this and have a PF blog, can you update your links to me, and consider putting up a quick post letting people know where to find me? Man, this really stinks.
Thanks,
Hazzard

Like I mentioned in my post over at blogger, the time has finally come. It’s early, so please cut me some slack….

As time goes on, I’ll get all the previous posts categorized and in the right place. I’ll also complete the links to my fellow PF bloggers. You’ll also notice that there are no ads. Screw ads. I’m going to take some time off from Adsense on this site. It looks much cleaner without them. I’ll leave them on the blogger site and might try to start another site just so I can get to the minimum amount needed to actually cash out and close the account.

If you have any feedback, please let me know. I didn’t get the comments over. I’m still looking at how I might do that. Needless to say, I’d like to have them here.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/14/pf/bad_banks_0511/index.htm

No secrets in this CNN article, but you know what? It makes me mad. It just doesn’t seem morally right, nor ethical to use so many tactics to take people’s money. It is absolutely ridiculous that these companies can prey on so many people that don’t take the time to read the fine print, and even if they do, aren’t likely to follow every rule without fail. I don’t care how organized someone is, or how meticulous they are, these tactics are designed to trip up most people over time.

So, the lessons I’ve learned over time on this subject:

-Banks are evil. Use a credit union (for banking and credit cards)
-Don’t carry a balance
-Don’t sign up for what I’d call “gimmick” offers from credit card companies
-Shred every credit card offer before you even open the envelope
-”Opt out” of all that junk mail so you don’t get the offers in the first place
-Never, EVER pay an annual fee
-Nobody cares what color your card is. Gold, platinum just mean you can carry MORE debt
-You don’t need a “themed” credit card. It’s just a credit card for crying out loud

Well, I knew the time was coming and I finally decided to pull the trigger. In the next couple weeks I will be moving this blog over to a domain on another server. I have to say thanks to Jonathon at Mymoneyblog.com for the hot tip on where to host. He also saved me $77 off the first year of hosting. Check out this post on his site for more information!

So, look for some pretty drastic changes to this blog over the next few weeks, including categories and easier navigation. Please don’t worry that you won’t be able to see this crappy old blogger template any more. I’ll be sure to link to the other 1,592,000 sites that are using it.

Also, please don’t worry about how I’m going to pay for this. Since Jonathon saved me so much money on the first year, I’ll only have to delay my retirement by two years. (So, I’ll have to work until I’m 52). It’s really not that big of a deal. 50 was probably too young anyway. Since, I’m pretty sure that I have at least two unique visitors to my blog each day, I consider it a worthwhile sacrifice.