money

Friday’s Reading: Four Good Stories for the Weekend

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Great Investment Advice

This article in San Francisco Magazine called “The Best Investment Advice You’ll Never Get” describes how Index Investing started off, it’s a wonderful insight into the world of mutual funds, fees, and passive investing.

San Francisco magazine

The best investment advice you’ll never get – page 1 of 3 For 35 years, Bay Area finance revolutionaries have been pushing a personal investing strategy that brokers despise and hope you ignore. The story of a rebellion that’s slowly but surely putting money into the pockets of millions of Americans, winning powerful converts, and making money managers from California Street to Wall Street. By Mark Dowie

Unfortunately for this writer, this story is a story that has already happened… So can you still make money out of this? That’s an interesting question because if everyone starts chasing the mean, then what will the ‘mean’ really mean? Will greater value be found in ‘managed’ funds again? …

Are you READY to retire?

This article on Extreme Retirement,

Could retirement before you’re even eligible to join AARP be the quintessential impossible dream? Not if you’re consistently disciplined, focused, driven and don’t give a hoot about what the Joneses think of that beat-up Chevy in the driveway, say experts. Whether you work to live or live to work is a question increasingly answered in favor of living by couples who have opted out of the daily grind before the traditional “early” retirement age of 50-something. What’s more, they’re not going quietly, but instead are springing up on Web sites and in media interviews, telling their stories and encouraging others to follow suit.

Dreaming of retiring at 45 or earlier? I’m not. Why? Because I don’t want to retire… I just want to be free to pursue things that I believe are important, not do the tasks that others pay me to think are important! Of course, that includes blogging on this blog: I love doing it. I just wish I could find the time to write even more ‘good’ articles’… so I should retire!

StumbleUpon Trolls: Good for your traffic!

One blog I was reading today suggests an off-beat way to get additional traffic from StumbeUpon. It’s an interesting read, and something that I’m aware of: writing negative stories or giving negative opinions (like editorials in newspapers) often elicits much more of a vocal, even visceral, response from readers. That’s why TV Shows like Mad Money, etc. are popular these days, because they elicit a reaction from the audience. Does your blog do that? Does this one? …

It’s All in the Blogger

After blogging about CashQuests.com dismal performance since the sale a few weeks ago, my story has been picked up by John Cow on his blog. Both of these articles suggest what happens when an original owner leaves his/her business in the hands of the new owner: sometimes it doesn’t last long at all.

In the area where I live, I’ve seen new businesses start up, be sold, and close down within the space of two years: I’m particularly thinking of one restaurant near my home where the owner worked hard to create an affordable pleasant lunchbox, and eventually sold the restaurant as a profitable business.

But the new owners couldn’t replicate the lunchbox experience. Fortunately, they had the tenacity and wherewithall to keep going by eventually selling a completely different set of popular food items in Taiwan: Taiwan’s Little Treats. Now they are moving, and I don’t think the new owners will be successful at all. It would be better to start a completely new business for them.

So, this weekend, where there’s money, there’s InvestorBlogger!

 

Where did our attitudes to money come from? Part 1

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In 2006, I asked a simple question: Are you Salary Slaves? I have thought about it for quite a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that many people are indeed salary or wage slaves… In this multi-part post, I’ll be looking at this issue in some depth each day for seven days…

Day #1 – Cash Transforms Our Subsistence

When people lived in agrarian societies, we all were tied in various ways to the land. We would all benefit when there was a surplus, and grow hungry when times were lean. When we were living in traditional societies, we’d live hand-to-mouth, literally. Even in countries that have just industrialized, there is a memory of what it was like to live on a farm, rearing animals, raising crops, picking wild fruit… and in many ways, life was great. Your shopping mall was outside your front door when it was warm, but if it turned cold and snowy, well, like the Ant in the traditional Anansi story, you’d had better have finished your preparations for winter.

However, once we entered the industrial age, many of us still assumed that the hand-to-mouth subsistence type of economy or society still existed. It did. It was called living from “paycheck to paycheck”. The cash we received was the equivalent of the stored value of the produce that we used to have on the farm.

But we’d get the paycheck or ‘wages’ paid on Thursday or Friday. It’d be gone by Monday or Tuesday and we’d be eating bread and drinking water for Wednesday and Thursday. With the coming of the middle class, wages become salaries, and weekly payments in cash became monthly bank transfers.

Do you remember your parents attitudes to money? How did they handle the cash? Were they good at it? Or did they just spend it?

Part 2 is published Sunday at lunchtime, then each day next week.

Adsense: How to cancel your account, and get your money back…

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Many bloggers are so disillusioned with the changes in PR ranking and the changes in Adsense. To recap briefly, Google has felled many kinds of blogs PR rankings and Adsense changes are meaning that (in the short term) income is likely to go down even further. Many bloggers are now planning a boycott of Google, including me.

The TOS of many agreements allow the agreements to be cancelled by both parties without cause (I presume that means you cancel without having to provide a reason). In other words, I believe you can write them, and cancel the agreement, remove the ads and receive all monies owed to you at the time provided that the amount is greater than $10. I’d be happy to be corrected if that were not the case. So, don’t just blow that amount and don’t let Google keep it… You really can ask Google to close your Adsense account and remit your earnings. It’s in their TOS. According to their TOS, they will send you the earnings.

Quote:
In the event the Agreement is terminated, Google shall pay Your earned balance to You within approximately ninety (90) days after the end of the calendar month in which the Agreement is terminated by You (following Google’s receipt of Your written request, including by email, to terminate the Agreement) or by Google. In no event, however, shall Google make payments for any earned balance less than $10.

Also, if you have written Google to cancel your contract, let me know the results. Were you successful or not? Share your experience.

I’d be in less of a hurry to throw in the towel with Google, though. My own plan is to keep Adsense until it gets to $100 (which wouldn’t have been that long without Google messing the formats!). So yes, I know, my Adsense is still there, but that’s not for much longer! …