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Mind Over Money

Father’s Day Should Be Renamed

by Kevin
I'm right behind you
photo credit: LaPrimaDonna

My parents are divorced and remarried to others. When they got a divorce I chose to live with my mom. This led me to only see my dad every other weekend, if that. I never really got to be close with my dad, and I think I missed out on some great life lessons.

My Dad’s not perfect, and I need to realize that no dad is perfect. He’s always been there for me physically (ex. money) but not really emotionally with a heartfelt “I love you.” I think a lot of dads are like that, reserved in their emotions, and it’s a shame. Those three words can really mean the world to a son.

Now that me and him have grown older I’m trying to draw his emotions out more and more. And to hear him say I love you really makes me happy. And some more words that always bring a smile to my face are “I’m proud of you.”

I know today is called Father’s Day, but it should really be called Bond with your Father’s Day. It should celebrate the bond between a Father and his child(ren).

For this Bond with your Father’s Day go and throw a ball around, play a little basketball, or ask him to do something what you’ve always wanted to do with him.

So fathers out there tell your child(ren) that you love them, how proud of them you are, and give them a big hug. And child(ren) out there, give your father a big hug and tell them you love them too. You’re really going to regret not celebrating that bond when it’s gone.

Happy Bond with your Father’s Day

I’ll leave you with this heartfelt post @FrugalDad Raising a Frugal Dad: An Open Letter to My Son

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Mind Over Money

Save Money By Planning Ahead

by Kevin

Forgetting to plan ahead can really add up. When you buy a bottle of water at the gas station and headache medicine at the airport, you pay a premium for convenience. This means that you are spending quite a bit more than you would need to if you took the time to plan ahead. Of course, even with the best planning, little things will come up, but you can save quite a bit of money by simply thinking about what you might need later that day.

Convenience

When you head out, you know that you will get thirsty later. This is a simple fact of life. Forgetting to take water along is just foolish. You can buy a multipack of water bottles at the store for about $4 or you can pay $2 per bottle at the gas station. Which is a better deal? If you really want to save, money and the planet, buy a reusable bottle and refill it yourself. Plain and simple, when you go out, think about what you will need and take it along. The savings can really add up. Headache medicines, lip balm, beverages and snacks are perfect examples of what you need to take along when you leave the house.

Waiting to the last minute

Planning ahead doesn’t only include taking things along when you go out. It can also mean thinking about purchases in advance. If you use your last check paying the rent, you might need to pay extra for a money order or cashiers check while you wait for your new checks to come in. This is a waste of money. Instead, monitor your checkbooks and make sure you order before you run out. The same goes for paying bills, why pay extra because you forgot to make a payment on time? Plan ahead and never miss a payment again.

Patience is a virtue

Online shopping is another great example. When making purchases online it is so tempting to pay a few extra dollars to get your item faster. While this may be worth the investment in some cases, generally you are better off waiting. How often have you paid to rush something in only to leave it in the box for a few extra days because you are busy? Save the money and choose the slower shipping.

A few dollars here and a few dollars there can really add up. Planning ahead is a great way to cut expenses without having to sacrifice anything.

Are you good at planning ahead?

 

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Mind Over Money

The Best Thing you Can Do For Your Life

by Kevin

I went to the library the other day and it brought back memories of when I was younger. My mom used to take me there on the weekends and I’d spend all day there just looking at all of the different books and deciding which ones I wanted to check out. I had a blast reading. It was fun soaking in the knowledge of things I didn’t know about. The best thing you can do for your life is

Learn

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study.  Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.  ~Henry L. Doherty

Learning can do so many things for you. It can help you save money, entertain you, and even help you become a better person.

The great thing about learning is that when you’re in the process of learning one thing, it can lead you to want to start learning about another thing. Like if I wanted to learn about how to change my own oil in my truck, that might lead me learn about the different types of oil, which can lead you to learn about how oil is processed, which could lead you to alternatives to oil. Kinda like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Read

Reading is one of the easiest ways to learn. Reading is also one of the cheapest ways to learn. You can always go to the library for free or buy books used.

The best of my education has come from the public library… my tuition fee is a bus fare and once in a while, five cents a day for an overdue book.  You don’t need to know very much to start with, if you know the way to the public library.  ~Lesley Conger

Try to read a new book every month if you can. I just started reading a new book every week and posting reviews on them.

To get the most from reading, it helps to take notes. I prefer to take notes at the end of each chapter. It really helps you to in grain in your mind what you read. You can also go back to your notes if you want a refresher without having to read the whole book again.

Just Do It

Experience is the best knowledge you can have. I wanted to learn about making a blog so I read and read and read…..and read. But the real learning didn’t take place until I actually jumped in and created this blog. I started to learn things I didn’t even think I needed to know. That’s just how some things are. If you don’t have an awareness of something, then how can you try to learn it? Like if you never heard of ETF’s, then how can you learn about it? But if you start to invest in the stock market then you will become aware of them, and then you will be able to learn about it.

If you don’t make mistakes, then how can you learn from them?

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.  ~Mortimer Adler

P.S. Some of the links in this post I earn a little bit of money from, in order to pay my bills. But I promise to never to intentionally lead you to a bad company and to never let the money affect my opinion.

How do you learn the best? When was the last time you read a book or jumped head first into doing something you’ve never done before?

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Mind Over Money

Thursday Quick Tip: Quit Smoking Today

by Kevin

I just want to give you a quick tip today that will affect your health as well as your wallet. Quit smoking.  Yeah, I said it, quit smoking.  It can add up to quite a bit of costs now as well as in your future.  Think about all of the money you spend each week, month, and year on smoking.  It is a lot of money that you could use toward debt or even vacation.  That would be pretty nice wouldn’t it?

And in the future when you are in the hospital because you need help breathing, its not going to feel too hot then will it.  Also it will cost you a huge chunk of change just to live.  So stop.

Smoking also affects your loved ones because they don’t want to see you on your death bed.  It is going to hurt them a lot when they see you suffering because you wanted to smoke. Next time you take a puff, think about your future loved ones or your loved ones now that are going to suffer because you wanted to relax a little; it just isn’t worth it.

If you do want to continue smoking, let me know in the comments below why you are making that decision and maybe we can converse back and forth a little.  You may change my mind or maybe I’ll change yours; we’ll just have to see.  This week’s quick tip, stop smoking.

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Mind Over Money

Ask And You Shall Receive

by Kevin

Ask-and-receive That’s a quote from the bible so it has some authority behind it. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll be surprised at what you will receive. This works in many aspects of life. I’ll focus on the saving money aspect of life because this is a personal finance blog and I followed those words recently to save some money.

Don’t be afraid

Why don’t more people ask for a discount? You should ask for a discount on everything you buy. I’ll admit I’m not quite there since I don’t ask for a discount at McDonald’s. But the point is that when you’re in a store looking to buy an item of value, you should ask “Can I get a discount on this?”

They want you to buy from them and if it takes a discount, they will give it to you. The worst they will say is no. I know it’s easy to say that’s the worst that can happen, but to actually believe that’s the worse that can happen when it comes time to ask is another thing. I’ll just give you this one piece of advice: Just do it! Don’t think about, just ask before you can talk yourself out of it.

Competition

Like I said before, they want you to buy from them. They don’t want to lose you to a competitor. Use that to your advantage.

Beth (My girlfriend, I’ll have to stop identifying her one day) saved some money recently buy doing this. She called one company and asked them their price and asked what the price included and if they price match. Then she called a competitor and found out the same info from them and had a cheaper price. After that, she called the original place and told them the competitors pricing. She ended up saving $100 and got free installation and rotation.

Use the free market for what it’s there for, to get a low price.

Knowledge

I will beat this fact to death, Knowledge is power. If you know how much a certain product goes for in the open market, you can use that to your advantage. When buying a car you can figure out how much a car goes for and use that knowledge to get a dealership to lower the price of a vehicle. Knowledge can also help you cut through the BS of a salesman. Don’t get taken for a ride just because you don’t know about what you want to buy.

I’ll leave you with this, to show you that it never hurts to ask.

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