Nothing will make you feel broker than having a trip or activity come up and not be able to attend due to a lack of money. It will not faze you if this occurs due to life kicking your ass at every turn, expensive legal or medical bills, or having loaned your lot to a family member that needed it. But if you burnt your money on a house that you have no business owning, a car you have no business driving, or a chick you have no business dating, I am warning  you right now that you are going to feel like a loser. It is for times like this that you must respect the necessity of saving for a rainy day, or better yet, saving for a fun-filled day. Living recklessly, hood-rich or beyond your means will always have you broke at trip time and your smart friends (who actually save ) will… [Read more]

“The End is important in all things” – Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Hagakure) In this great pursuit of the good life, I think that one of my biggest fears is that I will get to that big apple in the sky and forget why it is I sought it out in the first place. Something about the grind, the ups and downs, and the people that we meet has a way of twisting and changing our course to where we end up old, lacking focus and only knowing how to seek for more. This is a depressing end to a journey isn’t it? You see epic movies and stories like Lord of The Rings, where an end goal is stated and fought for and in the end when the heroes have achieved it, they gather around, raise their tankards and breathe out in relief of having thwarted that danger, defeated that grand dragon or rescued the fair… [Read more]

Editor’s Note: Don’t be a reactionary troll from my title, read the article. According to a lot of men, the idea of a suitcase carrying woman in a pantsuit does not vibe well with the happy housewife image that is the conservative ideal. This accounts to many of the issues women with strong careers have with finding a peer (in business) to date and marry. Men aren’t necessarily looking for a “lesser” woman to marry but they are looking for a woman who fits into the mold of what is shown as the ideal. Donald Draper looks for Betty Draper not a Peggy Olson aka the career driven go-hard that’s pretty but focused on the prize. Sure this doesn’t account for every male who shies away from single professional women but it describes a healthy chunk of us that run for the hills when we know a woman is an earner. Men who seek a… [Read more]

Are you the broke friend? It’s a simple question but it may not mean what you think it means. The broke friend oft times will annoy his other friends due to his belief that life sucks for him and him alone. The broke friend will listen to your advice but will rarely take it – despite how easy it is to get out of his financial hole. What we’re saying is that the broke friend title is earned through attitude more than it’s earn from your financial position. A cheap person that has money can be just as much the “broke friend” as can the guy that can barely pay his bills. It’s not an elitist title, it’s a “stop using money as your excuse to being a loser” title. Here’s the anatomy of the broke friend: Wants in on everything but can never afford it. Cries broke whenever it seems convenient – as if… [Read more]

For as long as I can remember I’d spend no less than $10 a day for lunch. I justified the expense as a break from the office and would eat out daily without fail. I absolutely never took my lunch from home. This was my practice for more than a decade of my working life. Those days are gone. At $50 a week that quickly adds up: $50 week x 4 weeks = $200 month x12 months – give or take a two-week vacay, a few PTOs here and there, the occasional non-Dutch outing, office lunch and forgot your money fasts—and that’s $2,400 a year. Did I really eat $24,000 worth of lunches over 10 years? You better believe I did! Earlier this year I lost 50 pounds of the evidence. Let’s just say I gave new meaning to “penny wise pound foolish”. Okay, so who isn’t more money conscious these days? If so,  a… [Read more]

Why spend a mint on a huge wedding only to lead a life of hard grinding, a debt ceiling that is as tall as a cathedral and an unhappy wife/husband bitching about money? Now as your friend and/or family member we have to hear you complain about your financial situation and how hard it is to keep up… yet you have a double income coming in. Why didn’t you think of this before showing up everyone with your 6-figure wedding bash? How is it impressing people if they already know that you’re about to spend 10+ years in the trenches struggling and putting strain on your marriage by working a way out of the hole that you’ve put yourself in? Recently I went to the wedding of a good friend of mine and it was small, intimate and very cost-effective. The couple love and understand one another to the point that they worked hard to… [Read more]

More than likely as your business grows you will run into a client who claims that their last contractor ripped them off or didn’t finish the job. Something along those lines where they squarely put the blame on their last contractor. This is a huge red flag to me in business based on experience. While they may claim that their last contractor was terrible, they themselves turn out to be bad clients. What they don’t tell you about their last contractor is whether they (the client) paid what they were supposed to pay, whether or not they were clear with their instructions or whether or not their check bounced and they took their sweet time making it right. These are major things that would slow or stop any contractor in their work but you are never told that side of the story. All they want you to know is that the last person sucked and… [Read more]

I hate Christmas, well hate is a powerful word but I hate what Christmas does to people. For someone that hates pretentious ideals and things, seeing a holiday where people purposefully make themselves go broke is beyond depressing. It’s like a drug that we are all forced to take. DRINK THE EGGNOG BITCH! DRINK IT! December rolls in, people’s lights go up in decorations that spike their light bills, bills are forsaken in lieu of buying gifts for loved ones and for 30 days we pretend as if it’s all love. Harry Connick Jr. is singing his ass off on the radio right after the late great Nat King Cole. Carols are being played all over the place and the temperature drops. Some people take it as an opportunity to celebrate family and make their way “home” as hardcore as possible to see mom and dad. Capitalists leech off of people’s ignorance, purchasing 100 Nintendo… [Read more]