Internet Scams

There are too many people in this world that are out for an easy buck.  Some are the predators and some are the prey.  I do not believe there is an easy sure fire way to get rich quick as a person hears about on the radio and television.  I was recently contacted about my supposed interest in selling a product known as Reliv.  I say supposed interest because I do not ever remember completing any kind of form whatsoever but yet here the person named Vera O. had my contact information.  I ran with it to see what I could find out.  My wife had told me the experiences her mom and her co-workers had with the product and it was a positive experience so I definitely wanted to hear this person out.

So Ms. Vera was adamant about calling and she was precise when she said she was going to call she called.  I wasn’t necessarily buying into the entire “pyramid- but it’s not a pyramid” scheme so she enlisted the help of a Senior Rep. by the name of Pete V.  After the conversation with Mr. V the positive impression that I had of the product was quickly dwindling down.

Good ole Pete was trying to “close” hard on me and I guess his previous 20 years in the Insurance business taught him to try and manipulate the “customer” into buying into the system.  While I was on that phone call the price started out at $25 to join and by the end of the conversation I would need to buy supplies running the total to $600 to start up this “opportunity”.  I didn’t bite and he became more aggressive.

I agreed to attend a local seminar they were having on the product and truly I had every intention of attending unfortunately something came up at the last minute and I was unable to attend.  My email inbox began getting overflowed with answers to objections I had previously had.  I thought wow communication is great with these people.

Well I thought it was great until I sent the following email:

Vera,

I wanted to write you and let you know that I appreciate all of the information.  At this time I have decided to halt my forward progression with Reliv.  I appreciate you taking the time to give me every opportunity to learn about your company but again at this time I do not feel it would be a good fit as I cannot personally dedicate the necessary time required for Reliv to be successful in my life.  Thank you for all of your hard work.  It has greatly been appreciated.

Sincerely,

Mr. Slinkard

I guess I was a little offended in that I took the time to send an email that said thanks but no thanks rather than let the individual blow up my phone or flood my inbox with useless information.  I thought I was doing the right thing and it’s been 3 days since that email and no response.  Makes me wonder what would have happened if I would have joined?  Would they have courted me pretty hard to get me to sign and then be absent in the new process?  Was it a put on?  I believe it was and now I’m glad I didn’t join.

Having MLB withdrawals

It is the 13^th of December and I am already looking forward to the upcoming Major League baseball season.  I frustrate my wife because I am a fan of many players and not just necessarily one team.  Though I do pull for the St. Louis Cardinals I have kept up with players like Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Ivan Rodriguez, etc. for quite some time.

I remember when Chipper Jones came up and it’s hard to believe that he has been in the league since 1994 and to know that he is in the twilight hours of his career.  I mean seriously how many more years will he be able to produce at the big league level?  I guess this is all part of the getting older process.  Watching games as a kid seeing your favorite rookie become a seasoned veteran on the verge of hanging his cleats up in the next couple of years. 

I think back to the early 1990s and the summer afternoons watching Cardinal baseball games or listening to them on the radio.  A part of me wishes I could have those summers back but reality tells me that I’ll keep moving forward.  There are many people who are haters of the baseball salaries and I’ve never quite been able to figure this out.

Maybe it’s because I had dreams of becoming a major league ball player as I transitioned from High School to Collegiate baseball.  I’m not for sure but I grew up looking at baseball as a business more than a hobby.  Unfortunately my playing days are over and I left the greatest game known to man on my own terms.  I realize that no matter how old I get I will always be a kid at heart.

Baseball players are entertainers and the game is their job.  Despite what others may think the game of baseball is a kid’s game but at the major league level it is more than a game it is a business.  The game is about championships, it’s about providing for families, it’s about a way of life.  We have people in our country who are 3^rd and 4^th generation military and my question is what is wrong with having blood lines in the major leagues?  What is wrong with your yearly salary coming from America’s past time?  Why complain about the salaries when people come to see these players entertain?

Thankfully the Major League Baseball Network is able to hold me over with historic games through their programming. 

2006 World Series Game 4** Yep I was there!

Money Coach or Predatory Coaching?

The sad truth about the times we live in is that there are people out to make an easy dollar and do not care who stands in the way to stop them.  As I am writing this I have in mind a particular site that comes to mind that involves Lynnette Khalfani-Cox who is a proclaimed Money Coach.  I looked at her credentials and she has authored a few books and apparently has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Redbook, Essence, and on CNN, FOX Business, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, The Tyra Banks Show, The Rachael Ray Show and on The 700 Club.

Not too shabby I would say but then I came across her web site that clearly states she is not a registered investment advisor and the information provided should be considered educational in nature, but it is not a substitute for legal or professional financial advice.  After reading this disclaimer at the bottom of the web site which primarily no viewer makes it to this peaked my curiosity.

I found her blog and read how she is having a teleseminar today and the cost is just $19.95 for 90 minutes for Ms. Khalfani-Cox to inform individuals how to handle creditors, get out of debt, deal with collectors, etc.  She is charging $19.95 per person for answers that can easily be found through simple search engine queries.  I couldn’t help myself but respond to her post with the following:

 I love how you have a disclaimer on your site stating The Money Coach is not a registered investment advisor and the information provided on this web site should be considered educational in nature, but it is not a substitute for legal or professional financial advice.

Yet you want people to sign up for a teleseminar for just $19.95. Are you kidding me? You make that disclaimer on the front of your .net web site and then you’re seriously asking people to pay money to hear information that is readily available on the Internet for… FREE!!! Wow!

Now I’m still waiting for her response but people use some common sense.  A lot of the information that these so-called “Money Coaches” use can be found through searches on Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.  Getting out of debt takes discipline, common sense and commitment.  Discipline to control your spending and pay your bills, common sense not to get ripped off by bad purchases or buying items you cannot afford and the commitment to follow through with getting out of debt.  There was no charge for that advice it was just simple “use your noggin” values.

Spending Going Up Approval Going Down

President Obama called for his latest “major new burst of federal spending” trying to jolt the wobbly economy into a stronger recovery and decrease the double-digit unemployment.  Obama made a comment that was rather shocking as he suggested our country simply has had to spend our way out of this recession.  I have never in my life fallen out of the grasp of debt by spending more money.  In fact the more I spend the more I lose yet the Messiah feels we’re just gonna have to keep shelling out the money.  For what, a deficit greater than $12 trillion dollars, are you serious Mr. President?

Though I believe the quote of the day comes from Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire,

“At least the president’s proposal will result in one new job — he’ll need to hire a magician to make this new deficit spending appear fiscally responsible,…”

Obama uses feel good terms like giving back to Main Street but seriously who believes he is going to follow through with his “commitments”?  The unemployment rate has shot upwards like a space rocket and I am reminded of the stories I heard growing up of the Jimmy Carter era.  It seems that Carter and Obama are actually the same individuals just living in different eras. 

One of the headliners I viewed on the Drudge Report states that Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President within their first year of office.  It seems like Obama is creating some elite credentials for himself that no one would want to be a part of.  Even Jimmy Carter scored higher at this point in his Presidency than Obama, its Jimmy freaking Carter.

For those who voted the man into office I hope like hell you are getting the “hope” and “change” you wanted.  It seems the administrations campaign slogan has successfully carried over into Obama’s first year.  The American nation is hoping that change will come soon but I believe we are seeing the best of the best as it is only going to get worse under Messiah Obama.

Ms. Shuster The Piker

What could you do with $100,000? What could you do if that $100,000 only required you write an essay containing 480 words and was written at Microsoft Word readability statistics of grade 10.6? Well I would think this would be a really good accomplishment especially if you beat out 40,000 other hopefuls. Chances are you might go to a local community college, a 4 year state school or in the case of Yelena Shuster you would go to Columbia University.

That’s right you would take your $100,000 attend a phenomenal school in the Eastern United States receive your degree and then bitch blog about how horrible it is to have an Ivy League education and unemployed.  I think back to the thousands of people that I have met throughout my high school and collegiate days and I cannot help but ponder what they would have been able to accomplish with that extra $100,000 just laying around.

This goes back to the issue I have of people and money and now with student loans. This individual won $100,000, she won an amount from an essay that sadly some people in our country will never at one instance in their life see yet she has the audacity to write about how bad it is to be her. Cry me a river especially when you come into the fortunate opportunity Ms. Shuster had. I have no respect for her and sadly she and I are from the same generation pool but the difference is I know how to pull myself up by the bootstraps.

Hey I just checked out the stats for my post, over 250+ words and written with a readability statistic of 12.0, this should be good enough for $60,000, right? Wrong. To the people like Ms. Shuster get over yourself and when you do that get a j-o-b. She, like many others, need to realize that she chose her education and her future is from the decisions she makes today. Maybe if she would spend more time focusing on getting a job and less time on blogging she could turn her blog title to Ivy League and employed dot com.  Just a thought. 

$100,000 Victory

Delayed Gratification Can Save You Money

There has been one question lately that I have been thinking about primarily because of a Dave Ramsey workbook that I am contemplating is what would you do with one million dollars? Imagine someone coming up and handing you a check with 6 zeroes behind the 1 and how would you spend it? Would you give a portion away? Would you blow it? Would you invest it, what exactly would you do?

In that same workbook was a statistic from another book stating that highly successful people tend to be more proactive than others. If you, like I have found myself in the past, are more reactive when it comes to your money then how likely are you to keep the million dollars within 1 year? Within 3 years? Within 10 years?

The answer may surprise you as many people who come into money go out of money because of poor spending habits. Let’s face it the society we live in is based primarily on the instant gratification rule. Meaning if I want something I want it now and when I say now I mean yesterday. I have found myself to be guilty of making snap judgments when it comes to the world of money. Those quick decisions have typically led me to a dead end battle to wage on in this thing we call life.

I look at delaying the decision making processes on wants to be fruitful and rewarding. Normally what I would view as a gotta have, well, that feeling subsides within 24-48 hours and I find myself being relieved that I did not give in to a spur of the minute budget breaking expenditure.

Seek and Destroy

My wife was able to negotiate a lower payment arrangement with our cable provider which allowed us more features than we had before and I just wanted to say how proud I am of her.  In our previous 6 years of marriage we had never had DVR or many of the movie channels.  Well that is until recently when Mindy took her negotiating skills to task and was able to get us more for less.

What can I say?  How can I complain?  Now it’s no big deal if we have something come up and there’s a television show we want to watch but we’re too afraid of missing it.  Wow it sounded great until I realized the big game is gonna be on next Saturday and we’re scheduled to go to the in-law’s house.  Maybe I can convince her I need to watch the game live. 

With the DVR I have taken full advantage of recording Dave Ramsey’s shows and have spent the majority of the weekend watching them.  Amazing how hearing other people’s success stories can motivate a person to achieve their own dreams.  That’s what I am here for to zero in on personal debt and destroy it.  I will be debt free and I will work my budget off to get there.

Obama: Will he be a hero or a zero?

I want to start this post with how much does the job market suck right now? I have a friend who has been searching and searching and searching for employment. Too many companies are learning how to down size and perform work more efficiently for less. Amazing how prior to the downturn of the economy many businesses were operating on more personnel and larger budgets.

At this point in time many companies have figured out how to gain more for less just like the American consumer has with personal finances. For my friend he was one of the numerous who have fallen victim to the belief that President Obama would be able to resurrect the world and unfortunately Obama has seemingly done the opposite. I realize the economy was failing under Bush but where are the significant increases under Obama?

Funny how the Obama supporters are still blaming Bush and saying give Obama more time, but what happens when Obama is still failing at the end of his four year term? Who will the Liberals blame the economy on then? Well the answer is simple, they will blame it on the Conservatives and Republicans just like how they are blaming this group now concerning Obama’s Health Care reform.

For my friend the job market has been slow and sadly enough I believe the entire American economy will not strive but barely survive at best under Obama. The mindset in which the American public handles their money has changed and so has the mindset of corporate America. Obama was supposed to be a hero but in the end will he be a zero as the job and economic markets continue to change in the great United States of America?

Most Millionaires DO live on a budget

I came across an article tonight posted on the Yahoo! Finance page entitled, “Now Even Millionaires Can See the Benefits of Budgeting” and was written by Paul Sullivan on Monday. The title took me back a little when I thought about how asinine this title is as an overwhelming census seems to be that millionaires can spend money like it’s going out of style and not worry about the repercussions of living on a budget.

From the research I have conducted in trying to live a debt-free lifestyle the one common factor I am finding out with millionaires is that these people are more money conscious than the working folk in society. Truthfully the millionaires living next door did not achieve this wealth by spending money in a fury and did so by watching their every penny.

The large majority of millionaires in our society did so over time and did not become a millionaire instantly and maintain their wealth. Sure there are people who were the beneficiaries of winning the lottery, inheritance, etc.,  but a lot of these people spent their money while not living on a budget. The thought process behind this title seems to be derived from the theory that those rich people can spend money whenever and on whatever they want. This is a myth that holds no validity in most cases.

The smartest and wisest thing Mr. Sullivan offered in his article is that “…a budget isn’t a bad idea.” How true this is and the goal of achieving financial securities in the future is exactly why I am budgeting now. Spending wildly is what got me into this mess and spending wisely will get me out. Folks, the millionaires in our society didn’t get rich over night and the smart ones will not go broke over night either.