How I Would Spend a Major Lottery Jackpot

"I spent 90% of my money on women and drink. The rest I wasted." -- George Best

Periodically, I buy a lottery ticket when the cash jackpot exceeds $100 million. Even with such a large jackpot, I know that hoping for a lottery win is a very, very bad retirement plan. The odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot is 1:175,711,536 and the expected return on a $1 lottery ticket is about $0.60 for a $100 million cash jackpot.

Basically, I like to think of a lottery ticket as entertainment. For a few hours, I have a chance to become an instant multi-millionaire. Also, for entertainment purposes, I've thought about what I might do if we did win a major lottery jackpot.

For reference, my spouse and I have agreed a winning jackpot would be split into three parts, one for each of us and the third portion would go into savings. Here's what I would do with my part:

Give my mom private nursing care in a place close to us. I would pay cost of a home close by, the moving costs, and private nursing care so that my mom could be comfortable and closer to us. While she is lives in a good nursing home near my sister, I think she would appreciate her own house and private nursing staff. Unfortunately, she doesn't have sufficient funds to cover the latter.

Buy fractional ownership in a private jet. Since 9/11, using commercial airlines has become much more tedious, due to restrictions, and security precautions. I just want to be able to show up at the airport and get on my plane immediately. Having a chartered private jet seems like a good way to achieve my goal.

Have a hired driver. One of the best things about living in Japan was not owning a car. The public transportation system allowed us to go anywhere for a reasonable cost. In the U.S., my initial solution would be to hire a limo. I would start with long trips and special events. If I liked it enough, I would hire a driver to handle all my transportation.

Purchase VIP seating at various events. I'd like to attend events like the Super Bowl, World Series, hit Broadway shows, etc. at least once. It would be great to get the "best seats" and not worry about the cost.

Charitable contributions. I would make a large one time contribution to my church and my school. I would also make larger regular contributions to various charities we've supported in the past. Finally, I would make some large contributions to charities in which friends have direct involvement.

Invest in a business, stocks or real estate. Although the third portion will likely cover investments, I would also like to use part of my funds to try a franchise business, rental real estate, or managing my own portfolio.

If I won a lottery, I would not buy a new car, a new house, a vacation home, or a new wardrobe. For now, I don't want any more "stuff." As for travel, I expect my spouse would spend part of her portion on that, and I'll get to tag along, just as she would tag along for my VIP seating :-) Finally, the money for our daughter's college education would come from the third portion, which goes into family savings.

UPDATE: In the evening after publishing this post, I came up with a few more spending ideas. I will publish the addtional ideas next week, since I don't expect to win anytime soon;-)

For more on Reflections and Musings , check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Childhood Money Misperceptions

"Money doesn't grow on trees." ~ idiom

Most children know that money doesn't grow on trees. However, based on my experience, young children sometimes have ideas that are very similar to money growing on trees. Here are some of the misperceptions:

Credit cards - When I was seven, I thought credit cards let people get things without using money. My dad had a gas station credit card and I thought he got all his gasoline for free. One day, my visiting uncle paid for gasoline with cash. I became frantic because I thought he was wasting money. I waved and screamed at him from the inside of the car to use my dad's credit card. After a few minutes, my dad finally figured out my message. He explained to my uncle and they both had a good laugh.

ATMs - One of my colleagues shared a solution that her children offered for spending cutbacks being considered in their family. They suggested that she go to the ATM to get more money. Her children believed that everybody could get any amount money they needed at an ATM.

Parental funds - Our five year old daughter believes that she will never need to earn money. As she explained to my mother-in-law, there is enough unclaimed loose money in our house to meet her financial requirements. Therefore, why waste time working to earn money?

After writing this, I realized that some children do not grow out these beliefs :-) Fortunately, I did learn my childhood perception about credit cards was wrong. Hopefully, my daughter will also learn she needs more money than she finds around our house.

For more on Crossing Generations check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial or parenting advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Our Three Financial Measures

"You get what you measure." ~ old adage

In our household, we measure three values to determine our financial health: investment income, total savings, and total debt. I believe these values will show whether we can maintain our early retirement status or not. To make the values relevant to our pre-retirement income, I divide each value by my salary prior to retirement for a ratio. Here is why these values are important to us:

Investment income. This value is important since we would like to live entirely on the income from our savings. Our target is to generate 80% of my pre-retirement salary through investments. This gives us an investment income ratio target of 0.8. If the ratio is significantly less that 0.8, we need to consider other options for generating income, such as doing part time work or returning to full time employment.

Since we have paid off our mortgage and reduced other expenses, our income needs are about 0.5 of our pre-retirement salary. Thus a target of 0.8 gives us a comfortable margin of safety.

Total savings. We have estimated that a savings total equal to 20 times our pre-retirement salary is needed to maintain sufficient inflation adjusted retirement income through our nineties. This calculation was done when our target income was 0.8 of our pre-retirement salary. At this point, we are not doing a recalculation, even though our monthly expense needs are at 0.50 of our pre-retirement income.

Total debt. Our target debt is zero. Debt creates additional expenses, which we want to avoid in retirement. For example, paying off our mortgage reduced our monthly expense by 24%.

For reference, we do not include the value of home, cars or other personal items in any of our financial measures, since these items do not generate income.

I track these measure on a quarterly basis to determine if we are on track and to take action when we are not meeting targets. For the latest quarterly review, see Wealth Builder Ratios - Q1 2010 Update , or check the right sidebar.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links To Carnivals From May 18 to 24, 2010

Here are links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from May 18 to 24, 2010:

Festival of Frugality #280

Money Hacks Carnival #116

Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #40

Carnival of Financial Planning #142

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Some Jobs are Gone Forever

Some U.S. jobs aren't coming back by The Wall Street Journal reports that some jobs may not come back even as the economy recovers. Jobs lost and not returning are occuring in the following fields:

1. Contruction
2. Financial sector
3. Publishing
4. Office administration

In the first two cases, the economic boom made both these fields much larger than normal. With the great recession, the number of jobs declined significantly and will not likely return to boom times. Job in the last two fields are declining to due technology, which has increased productivity and reduced the number of people needed.

Unfortunately, it seems this situation will contribute to a continued jobless economic recovery, requiring some workers to get retraining before rejoining the workforce.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial, career or job advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Life Extending Habits

Bad habits can age you by 12 years reports that combination of four bad habits can increase the risk of death for an individual. The study evaluated the effects of smoking, alcohol, exercise and diet and determined that achieving certain threshold levels improve a person's health. The behaviors, thresholds and my experience are summarized in the table below.

	Target Levels
Behavior	Healthy	Personal Experience
Smoking	Never or had quit	Never
Drinking Alcohol	Fewer than 3 glasses (men) or 2 glasses (women) per day	zero to five glasses
Exercise	More than two hours per week	two to four hours
Fruits and Vegetables	Eating 3 servings of vegetables and fruit per day	one to five servings

It appears that I am doing just well enough in two of the four behaviors, with room for improvement in the other two. Of course, doing better is no guarantee of a longer life, but I still consider it a good idea to reduce intake of alcohol and increase the amount of fruits and vegetables to reduce health risks.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links To Carnivals From May 11 to 17, 2010

Here are links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from May 11 to 17, 2010:

Carnival of Financial Planning #141

The Bobo Carnival of Politics

Festival of Stocks

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, political or investment advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Signs of a Short Layoff

Someone I know, who was unexpectedly laid off in April, landed a job in about a month, in the same field and for the same pay. Based on what I heard about the job search, I expected him to be very marketable. However, even I was pleasantly surprised about how fast he was successful. Here are some of the signs that the layoff would be short:

Good opportunities with relocation. The recruiter commented that there was a 100% chance of a job offer by moving to certain regions. The person didn't want to relocate, but it was a good backup option.

An interview within two weeks. I know people who have made hundreds of inquiries and waited months, without getting an interview. Not only did he get an interview, he received two, and both are within commuting distance.

Another reason is his profession is in a field that has strong demand in a few industries. While his previous company was struggling, there are others that are growing even in the slow economic recovery.

Overall, it is good to see some people rebounding quickly from a job loss.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial, career or job advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Getting Old isn't for Wimps

“I find getting older a lousy deal. There is no advantage in getting older. I’m 74 now, and you don’t get smarter, wiser, more mellow or kindly. Your back hurts more; your eyesight isn’t as good. It’s a bad business. I advise you to avoid it if you can. ”~ Woody Allen at Cannes 2010

To me, the problem is my body parts break down more frequently and heal more slowly as I've become older. In addition, replacement parts require surgery, and often don't work as good as new. And sometimes, replacing a part just isn't possible.

Until my early forties, my body held up pretty well. I played football and baseball in my teens; rugby in my twenties; softball, volleyball and running in my thirties; and tennis in my forties. Although the level of physical impact declined after 30, I felt my body was still in relatively good shape. I had few injuries, recovered quickly, and barely saw my doctor every 2-3 years.

However, something happened in my forties. My joints began to hurt more. Something always seemed to be in pain. Healing took longer, seemingly forever. In addition, foods I used to enjoy were now giving me stomach and intestinal problems. At this point, I'm not looking forward to getting the future "signs of aging."

Of course, aging can bring on more serious issues. I'm dreading the possibility of getting a major injury from an accidental fall, or worse yet, an everyday activity. Hopefully, I will be able to avoid having a major illness or chronic disability, which has happened in my family. In his seventies, my dad caught pneumonia, went into a coma for several months, from which he briefly recovered before dying. Shortly afterwards, my mom broke her hip and is now in long term care at a nursing home.

Of course, aging isn't all bad. There is a silver lining to getting older. It definitely is better than the alternative:-) Also, with age comes experience, which has lead to better judgement. I am fortunate to have the more financial assets than when I was younger. Best of all, I got the opportunity to retire early.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial or aging advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Part-Time Jobs - Short Term Overload

After struggling to get more than one part time job for the past two years, I now have the opposite problem - too many part time jobs at the same time. I had five seasonal part time jobs in March, down to four by the end of April, and was trending to three by June. However in early May, I received an offer for a short term part time job to which I applied in 2008. So, I'm back at five part time jobs for the rest of this month.

I don't have an issue with the work load. However, I'm learning there are some issues which may prevent me from working five part time jobs in the future, even for a short time.

Too Many Hours - The most recent part-job requires a minimum of 30 hours per week. Fortunately, they have been flexible about when the hours are worked since they are open 24/7. However, it is likely I will work over 50 hours for some week during the next two months, which is the duration of this job.

Being retired for over two years, it just feels working 50 hours or more cuts too much into my personal time for family, entertainment and projects :-)

Competing Priorities - Every part time job would like me to give them top priority. Priority management is pretty easy with two to three jobs. Four jobs is still manageable, when the hours are between 5-10 per week for most jobs. However, managing priority for five jobs is testing my capability, especially since one job would like 30 hours per week.

Schedule Management - Only one of my jobs has a set schedule and one job has no schedule. The other three make a weekly schedule about one week in advance. Thus, I have to juggle three jobs schedules when submitting preferred work times.

Paycheck Tracking - Although three of my jobs have been accurate in paying me, my fourth job has already had two paycheck errors. The most recent part time job has recommended up front that I confirm I'm being paid the correct amount with each paycheck. I've also learned that some employees from this new part time job have already experienced incorrect payments.

At this point, I plan to complete the work period for all five jobs. I made a commitment for a specific time period when I accepted the offer for the fifth job and plan to keep it. However, if they offer to extend my work session, I may decline. Finally, I may decide not to apply for a short term event part time job, which I was offered last year but couldn't work last year. If this job requires too may hours per week, I may pass on it for this year, even though I would love to attend the event for free.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial or job advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Parents Are No Longer Super Human

When I was a child, my parents were larger than life. To me, they knew everything, could solve any problem and would make everything right. I knew they weren't super heroes, but surely they were super human :-) I believed what they said about everything, especially about doing well in school, being frugal, and working in a field that paid well.

Perhaps I was naïve, but it wasn't until my high school years that I realized my parents were closer to human. Looking back, I'm sure my parents faced their share of challenges, which they didn't share with us. For example, my dad worked long hours to achieve a middle class lifestyle. We didn't see him much as kids. Also, he experienced career setbacks, which I didn't learn about until much later.

It seems children already know that today's parents are merely human. Our five year old daughter already knows that her parents can be wrong. She often reminds me of the times I burnt a pizza or purchased speckled bananas, which then went bad. However, for some cases, she probably should listen to mom and dad. For example, she doesn't think she'll ever need to earn money, since she can always find enough loose money in our house :-)

Personally, I don't feel bad that our daughter sees us as human, and not super human. We try to be transparent about our challenges in ways she can understand. I think it will help her to become self sufficient faster, since she will learn to think for herself earlier in life. Best of all, she'll be pleasantly surprised as she gets older, when she learns that we were right more often than she thought :-)

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial or parenting advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Spend Less Earlier or More Later

For large purchases such as furniture, car or house, financial decisions are sometimes based on the size of the monthly payment. If the amount is affordable, then the purchase is made using monthly payments for a specific period. Personally, I like to evaluate the total cost when determining whether to make a purchase with cash or over time. Below are a two examples of the difference between paying immediately or over time.

	Home Mortgage @ 5.375% interest rate
Price	Payment Period	Total Spent	Difference
$150,000	30 years	$302,384	$152,384
$150,000	15 years	$218,826	$68,826
$150,000	10 years	$194,234	$44,234

	Car Purchase @ 10% interest rate
Price	Payment Period	Total Spent	Difference
$25,000	7 years	$34,862	$9,862
$25,000	5 years	$31,870	$6,870
$25,000	3 years	$29,040	$4,040

Essentially, the value in the difference column is the price for "paying later," which range from 16% to 102% of the money borrowed. For purchases other than a home, the premium for paying later isn't worth it to me and I try to pay cash immediately. For a home, our approach is to take out a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, but then try to pay it off as soon as possible, to minimize the difference in cost.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Securities I Won't Buy

One reason I like investing in publicly traded securities is there is relatively low effort for the transaction or maintaining the investment. However, in the past year, I've learned there are "high maintenance" publicly traded securities, which typically fall into the category of partnerships. Partnerships are intended to avoid the double taxation of corporations, since profits, losses and some deductions are passed through to partners via a schedule K-1. Since a partnership K-1 often generates a need for additional tax forms, filing a tax return becomes more complex and more expensive, if one pays a preparer. In my opinion, this is because the IRS wants to prevent individuals from using partnerships as tax shelters, which would deduct partnership losses against other non partnership income.

Since my tax return is already complicated, I don't want to add unnecessary complexity. Unfortunately, the level of complexity increase is the same for owning one share as it is for owning thousands of shares -- very high. Therefore, I've decided not to purchase any publicly traded partnerships for my portfolio, even though there are some attractive investments, e.g. Blackstone Group, L.P.

The way to identify a partnership is that the company will often, but not always, have the term Partner in their name, or the designation L.P. (limited partner) after the name. In addition, many oil and gas companies are limited partnerships and there are Proshares and Powershares DB ETFs that operate as partnerships. To confirm if a company or ETF is a partnership, I found the list at Tax Package Support very useful.

Hopefully, with this information I will be able to avoid a significant increase in tax complexity for a relatively small investment :-)

For more Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, investment or advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links To Carnivals From May 4 to 10, 2010

Here are links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from May 4 to 10, 2010:

Money Hacks Carnival #114

Carnival of Financial Planning #140

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Increasing Part Time Job Offers

When I retired in my forties in 2007, I thought it would be easy to get a part time job when needed. I thought a 25+ year career at a Fortune 100 company would show I would be a good part time employee. I was right. . . for about a month. I was offered the first part time job for which I applied. After that, I experienced as series of rejections through the end of 2009.

At first, I decided I was being rejected for being over qualified. I also concluded the Great Recession probably reduced my chances since many younger applicants were applying. Finally, I took action by broadening my search from a few jobs of high interest to more jobs in which I had at least a medium interest. Now , I'm finding that I almost have more job offers than I can sustainably handle. Fortunately, all of my part time jobs are seasonal or short term. However, I have had as many as five jobs concurrently during the seasonal transitions.

In reflecting on my improved part time job offer results, here are the factors I think had the biggest influence:

Increasing the opportunities. Initially, I only applied to what I considered "perfect" part time jobs, assuming I would have a 100% success rate. After experiencing a 15% offer rate, I expanded my list of potential opportunities to "great part time jobs for retirement."

Emphasized part time job experience on my resume. My original resume highlighted the job from which I retired, my only job since graduating from college. I believe many employers thought I was primarily interested in a full time job, and therefore, not a good candidate for a long term part time job. I changed my resume to show my part time job experiences, which shows that I am primarily interested in working part time..

Patience. I incorrectly assumed that all employers were interested in hiring soon after soliciting applications. For two of my part time jobs I was offered a position at 6 months and 14 months after applying.

Improving economy. For 2008 through 2009, I believe there was a glut of part time job applicants due to a high number of full time job seekers expanding their employment opportunities. With an improving economy, it seems I am again competing mostly with primarily part time job seekers.

At this point, I have accepted every part time job I've been offered. For now, I am working each one to the "end of the season" to fully evaluate how much I like the job and which jobs will best help us to reduce our withdrawal rate from savings. In 2011, I'd like to narrow the number of part time jobs to a minimum that meets our financial and my personal interest/development needs.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial or job advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Losing Employer Sponsored Health Insurance?

“...if Americans like their doctor they’ll be keeping their doctor, you like your plan, you’ll be keeping your plan.” - President Obama on Health Care Reform bill.

It seems President Obama's statement is not exactly correct. Major companies are already evaluating the option of dropping employer sponsored health benefits and reported in this Fortune article that examines documents submitted by AT&T, Verizon, Deere and Catepillar to the House Energy and Commerce committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman.

The original intent of the committee was to show that these companies had incorrectly claimed write downs based on the health care legislation. Instead, the investigation showed the companies' write downs were proper and revealed that these companies had done cost analyses on providing health insurance to employees versus paying the penalty for not doing so. All four companies concluded it would significantly lower costs to get out of the business of providing health insurance, i.e. eliminate providing health care, pay the penalty, and let the government manage health care insurance in the future.

Based on this article, I believe the following must be true:

My company has also done the analysis. I would be surprised if all the Fortune 100 companies haven't done analysis, which would include the company from which I retired. While my company is self insured, I expect it would still may be cheaper for them to pay the penalty than to continue providing health insurance.

I may not be able to keep my current health insurance plan. If my company decides to eliminate employer sponsored health insurance, the plan will no longer exist. I guess I better start investigating my future health insurance options on the exchanges, just in case.

At this point, none of the mentioned companies have dropped health insurance for their employees. Also, my company has not communicated any changes to my retiree health insurance. However, based on the Fortune article, I will be certainly will be more interested the types and costs of insurance coverage in exchanges, since I may be participating in the future.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment

This is not financial or insurance advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Who's to Blame for the 1000 Point Drop in the Dow

The Dow decline of 1000 points on May 6, 2010 has led to much speculation about the causes, which include the Greek debt crisis, a "fat finger" entry by a trader, and computer trading programs. What surprised me is that a few of the "usual suspects" were not included in the discussion. So in the interest of completeness, I acknowledge them in this post:

Greedy financial institutions. After all, they gave us the last financial crisis with subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or securitization, and credit default swaps. It should be easy to add "market manipulation" to the list. High on the list of "usual suspects" would be Goldman Sachs, which is currently being investigated by the SEC.

George W. Bush and 8 years of Republican control. The current administration seems to have inherited every financial issue from the previous administration. Adding another inherited issue to the list would be simple enough:-)

Hedge funds. The managers of these funds are creating major market swings to take advantage of the individual investors, who will panic, which will allow the hedge funds to profit.

If it only were so easy to place blame with one of these causes. Then we could pass financial reform and forever protect the market from a future collapse :-) The reality is we'll probably never know the complete cause of the decline. However, I do believe the 1000 point drop is an indication that volatility will be high for now, as investors get through the current period of high uncertainty.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Just Accepted a Great Retirement Part Time Job

On Monday, I accepted an offer for a great part time job in retirement. Here are the elements that make it almost perfect for me:

Flexible work hours - Although I need to work a between of 30-40 hours per week, I can choose my own schedule anytime the office is open, which is 24/7. Thus, I can work anytime that is convenient for me.

Convenient location. Although it is more than 5 miles from my home, it is within 5 miles of a volunteer job location and within a mile from another part time job location. Thus, I can coordinate my work hours with these other jobs to reduce time commuting.

Reasonable pay. The job pays $11.75 per hour and includes paid training.

Short term.The job will last a maximum of six weeks, but could end earlier. Since retiring, I prefer working seasonal jobs that have defined start and ending times.

The only element missing that would make this a perfect retirement part time job would be employee perks, e.g. free use of company services, which I don't expect this job to have. At this point, the only potential downside is that I won't like the work. However, I think I can do an office job with the other characteristics for six weeks, no matter how much I dislike the work :-)

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Checking Part-Time Work Pay Stubs

After working in a salaried position for many years, I was used to having exactly same the paycheck every month.   Since taking early retirement in 2007, I've been working in part time jobs, which pay on an hourly basis for varying schedules.  Since my first part time job used a computerized time sheet. I didn't worry much about the accuracy of my paychecks.    However, subsequent part-time jobs used paper time sheets, which are manually entered.   Two of the jobs have consistently paid accurately for hours worked.   However, one of the jobs shorted me both for hours and pay rate, in my first two paychecks..  
 
Although it was corrected quickly, the error in pay in one job has caused me to be concerned about the accuracy of pay for all my part time jobs.  For now, I've decided to rigorously track submitted hours versus paid hours in each part time jobs.  So far, it appears the first and only error was due to a new employee at the payroll firm.   There has not been another error.  However, I think I will continue to confirm paycheck accuracy for the next six months in all my part time jobs.
 
For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links To Carnivals From April 27 to May 3, 2010

Here are links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from April 27 to May 3, 2010:

Money Hacks Carnival #113

Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #37

Carnival of Personal Finance #255

For some interesting articles from the blogosphere, check out these Carnivals and give the hosts some recognition for their hard work.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

A "None of the Above" Option is Needed

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." ~ P. J. O'Rourke

As the May 5, 2010 primary elections near, the Republicans believe the Democrats have alienated many independent voters who will choose not to vote for the Democratic party.   We've been getting a lot of political literature from Republicans about how they are conservative, anti-spending, and representative of tea party values.  To me, Republicans claiming these characteristics is ironic since they forgot to demonstrate them when they were the majority party in Congress.   I haven't forgotten how the Republicans managed to destroy a budget surplus while spending money on their multitudes of pork projects.

In my case, I plan to vote against the Democratic candidate. I want the Democrats to understand that 2008 was not mandate for their political views, but rather a rejection of the Republican failure. However, I don't think the Republicans understand that a vote against the Democrats is not a vote for the Republicans, whom I often dislike almost as much as the Democratic candidate.  In general, I find most of the major party candidates to be self promoting individuals who disappoint me once they are in office.

What our election system needs is a "none of the above" voting option.  That way we give the political parties and their candidates a reality check since I believe "none of the above" would be a winner in many races :-)   That way voters could let the candidates know what they really think and winners would no longer be the "lesser of two evils."

Maybe a "none of the above" option would would eventually lead to candidates who would actually work for the best interests of all Americans when elected.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or political advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Et Tu Buffett?

I used to admire Warren Buffet. To me, he was an investor who put ethics and principle above personal gain.  However, after he publicly supported the Democratic platform and candidate Obama, I began to suspect my admiration was being misplaced.  Then  the lobbying efforts by Berkshire Hathaway to exclude previous derivative deals from posting collateral made Mr. Buffett look as self focused as those on Wall Street.   The final straw for me was  Warren Buffett to CNBC: Goldman Sachs Has "Lost the PR Battle At This Point".  His public support for Goldman Sachs leads me to think that there is something that Goldman doesn't want discovered.

I'm sorry to say that I no longer see Mr. Buffett as having higher ethics and principles than his colleagues working for Wall Street firms. 

For more on  Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial or political advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2010 Achievement Catalyst, LLC