Tag Archives: Money

Cuba Day 9

by

0

Day 9 – Last Day in Cuba

0925am

The dinner went smooth even if I got soaked through in the rain getting to the restaurant. My choice. I could have waited for an umbrella. The tenderloin wasn’t bad, just not flavorful. They asked for feedback at the restaurant so I told them that I wasn’t impressed by the majority of the meal. Lisa, a member in our group, is also a singer and sang a song with the band. It’s on video as soon as I realized what was happening. After dinner we had drinks at the bar in the hotel then I finished some packing and went to bed.

Regular breakfast and bus loading. We passed through town to get to the airport. It was pretty quick to go through immigration. Some people were denied their Cuban stamps in their passports. I found someone that then talked to a supervisor that said they would get someone out to stamp them. I think we were stonewalled but Daniel stepped in and with far better and smoother spanish than mine was able to keep the ball rolling. The woman from immigration, the person that was the same official for all the people that didn’t get their stamps, eventually came out. She said that they all said they didn’t want the stamp. Oh well. They got their stamps in the end which is what matters. Boarding is starting and we will soon be off.

Continue reading →

“A penny for your thoughts?” aka “What’s a penny worth? A reflection.”

by

0

I had the opportunity recently to come across a bunch of pennies tossed onto the ground in a parking lot.

I work. I make money. And I try to enjoy my life to my level of comfort. Rich and poor are relative notions. To someone living off of food stamps, finding a better paying job, or a job in general, might the best thing to happen that year. To the pro basketball/football player, a million dollars over a 5 year contract might be a negotiating point. Just the concept of having a million dollars in the bank even after a lifetime of work seems like an astronomical amount. Continue reading →

cost and effect, part 2

by

0

Return of the Money Pit

Value has its own place as a general concept but it’s hard sometimes to see why people do what they do or choose what they choose.

As a general idea/concept I can understand why we buy/obtain more than we need. I get it. You see or hear about something nice or cool and you just want it. But the part that I have trouble with is why ‘we’ buy/obtain things that we can’t afford. In same cases that is literal. You live paycheck to paycheck yet you upgrade your phone every chance you get. I am not advocating or saying that you can’t spend the money how you please but I think I don’t want to hear anymore that something else, probably more important and vital in my perception can’t be had because the money isn’t there.

Do you really need to spend $90/month on internet/cable? How about upwards of $200+/month on internet/cable/phone?

A new car every few years? The fancy car getting 15mpg when you could be driving one for half the cost and twice the mpg? Another coach/gucci purse because well because.

This also applies to eating out a lot, though sometimes one could argue you could save money by eating out instead of ‘wasting’ food at home (just throw non-meat things into the garden/compost).

I feel bad for those people on the home makeover shows or those who win a raffle for something expensive not realizing that they might be stuck with some massive tax bills that they have to pay. They couldn’t afford their current living style and now they might actually lose what little home they did have because of new bills. I don’t know if shows or raffles explains these things or not.

Dad taught that a check or credit card were essentially the same in concept. You don’t write a check if they money isn’t already in the bank and you don’t charge something unless you have the money or it really will be there when the bill needs to be paid. And it isn’t the minimum balance that needs to be paid, but the whole bill.

I’ve seen someone’s credit card statement (shown to me), the amount they still owe, and the time to pay it off with the minimums. That’s a long time and a lot of money.

I don’t know what it will take or even if ‘we’ will ever become more responsible for our own actions. I’m not talking business/corporate as they seem to be immune to many of their mistakes but as individuals honor seems to be missing more often.

Time to get back to cleaning and to increasing the things in the donation pile. Less sometimes is more.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

cost and effect, part 1

by

0

Money.

What images already start to form in your mind? Do you see coins? Dollars? Hundred dollar bills?

In the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein the main character describes money as an incredible idea. The book is great by the way and is very buddhist to me if you catch the message. I digress.

Can we truly define money? It’s linen with the backing of.. umm.. the gold in fort knox?

Part of the issue with money is the very very subjective idea of what something’s value is. As them folk, me in this case, say, “To the dying man water is worth much but to the drowning man he would gladly give it away.” (May 14th 0025, SFA)

Money is the short pocketable form of barter.. kinda. Old world style, you make someone a rocking chair and they pay you with lots of fruits and veggies or something like that. Now you just get something in your pocket or electronically on a statement.

We place our own values on things all the time. Do you really need to spend millions of dollars to have a private flight into orbit? How about being able to not have to decide between medicine for your child or dinner for the family? In the similar water analogy, the rich person may, or may not, be wasting enough food to feed said family and going into orbit sure won’t help them at all.

$1.99. It’s not $2.00. That’s too much. But you see that #1 and almost forget about the 0.99. They do it at the gas pumps. If you’re not sure just take a few moments next time and look closer at the prices.

We can also be tricked into the value of things. Retail price $1,000. On sale for $100.  Doesn’t it matter what it is? Not really. Most people I think would at least take a look to see what the great deal is. Amazon is great with showing the retail price that isn’t even the price in the store sometimes and then showing the percent off. Get’s your attention fast enough you might buy it without doing a price comparison.

We use money on a daily basis. We love it and we hate it.

As they say, “Money is the root of all evil,” I’d say evil is the root of all evil and money can be used like anything of potential power, for good or for evil.

Until part 2 where I shift thoughts,

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

 

Related articles