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When I was growing up, my parents went to a generic store to buy clothes for us kids. We all got the exact same clothes, with subtle color differences. In my parents’ defense, there were many kids to shop for, and we were all boys, so the clothes never lasted as long. They simply couldn’t afford to clothe us in the fads of the day.
When I started buying my own clothes, I fell into the habit of buying “cool” clothes. I still do, to an extent. But the truth of the matter is that FADS ARE EXPENSIVE TO FOLLOW.
Funny thing, it isn’t just clothes: Almost every aspect of life that has fads or temporary fashions costs more to follow than going outside the fad. This leads me to believe that fads are not good things.
Personal Finance has many fads as well. People who know me will ask me who I “read”, in an effort to determine the source of what I teach and how I live. Many of them will be sporting a copy of their favorite author’s latest offerings, like a shield against the unbelievers. Whether it’s JIM CRAMER, DAVE RAMSEY, ROBERT KIYOSAKI, SUZE ORMAN, or even me, people get stuck on ONE person and follow that person (dare I say) religiously.
People, don’t do this to yourself. I don’t pretend to be the only game in town, and hopefully these others, or other bloggers out there who are the current flavor of the month don’t either. Read as much as you can out there, preferably from sources who don’t agree. Take what works and discard the rest. Once you figure it out with Finance people, start really looking at other areas in your life where you follow the fads. See if there are other view points that you might gain something by listening to.
Sometimes, the level of stupidity in the world is crushing. How are young people expected to grow into good, productive, members of society if they don’t have good examples from their parents and the other adults in their lives? Yet those same adults, who only qualify for the title due to their managing to hang around for at least 18 years, are quick to blame young people for everything that goes wrong in their lives. I don’t envy what we adults are leaving to the youth of the world. Our forbearers did better for us, and we adults should be ashamed of ourselves for the behavior we model for those that come after.
My first STORY demonstrates how little regard many adults have for the future. The basics of a story are this: A family got greedy and bought a house during the most recent housing bubble, using an adjustable rate mortgage to allow them to “buy” more house than they should have. Many others in the neighborhood did the same thing. Well, as always, the ride came to the end for many of their neighbors, and they lost their homes. Now these specimens of human waste have decided that they are just going to stop paying their mortgage because they don’t like the rules of the game they entered into.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t care, but they have kids, and they are teaching these kids that it is okay to decide, in the middle of a game, that they want to change the rules or take their ball and go home. Instead of teaching their kids the value of making wise decisions after careful deliberation, they decide to teach them to say “F-You!” to doing the right thing, common sense and decency. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on them; it is people like these that inspired Finance For Youth in the first place.
Before I go off on a humanity-hating binge, I feel the need to balance the scales. VERIZON recently helped an old and lonely widower retrieve his departed wife’s voicemail greeting after it had somehow been erased. This man listened to his wife’s voice every day since her passing. When I originally heard about the story, I thought it was a little strange, but “live and let live”, or something. When I read that Verizon really stepped up and fixed the problem, that’s a good day for humanity.
This week’s post might seem to deal less with finance than normal, but stick with me here. We’re going back to moving out a little bit, but today we’re talking about some skills EVERYBODY should pick up. Bringing the whole shebang back to finance, knowing these skills can save you a lot of money, and not knowing them can cost a lot of money.
COOKING: This is a no-brainer, but knowing how to cook is important, especially if you are living on your own. Let’s talk a little about degrees here. When I say cooking, I’m not talking about being able to open a can of tuna for a sandwich, nor am I talking about cooking like THE NAKED CHEF, but you need to learn how to throw a few, cost-efficient, nutritious ingredients together so you don’t starve or so you aren’t forced to spend stupid amounts of money on fast food. There are plenty of books in your library (free books, who knew?) to get you started, and there are also plenty of web sites that can point you towards some decent meals. There are also a few tools that can help you. None of these are essential, but hardly anything really is essential. These are items that come in handy and make life a little easier. I know there are other items that can do the same thing, and sometimes even cheaper, but having these, and many others, makes cooking just that much more fun.
- Microwave
- Rice Cooker
- Crock Pot
- Sauce Pot
- Good knife
SEWING: When a button falls off, or when you step through a hem, you have a few options: You could buy a new piece of clothing, You can take it to get mended, or you can fix it yourself. Although fixing it yourself might not give you that professional look that the other two options will, you really need to think about degrees of importance. I can only speak for guys here, but if I loose a button, and I sew it back on, this button will be covered by a belt (pants), or possibly a tie (shirt), so it doesn’t matter that much. If I’m trying to do some serious alterations to shorten the length of a sleeve, I will probably take it to have it done, only because I don’t want to relive the COSBY SHOW (VIDEO LINK) episode. Of course, there is a fourth option: You can go back to Mom or Dad and they can help you.
There are a few other skills that are important for you to know, and I’ll be going over some of the ones I feel are important in the near future. If you can think of any skills you think are important, drop me a line!
Till next time!
