Personal Finance: The Basics in One Blog Post

All personal finance begins with the person.  All people need food, water, and shelter to survive. All people want other things in life besides the basic necessities.

To survive on your basic necessities you need to have some sort of income. The income is the creation of wealth from less resources; whether this is receiving money for services and or time (job) or charity (foundation, government assistance, individual donation, etc).

Your income rate needs to exceed your spending rate for your needs or you will not survive. There are two sides to the equation. In coming (income) and Out going (expenses) are the sides and need and want are the insides.

Basic In-coming and Out-going Diagram

Which costs more Carrying or Operating? Bulbs Light The Way

In my past post the focus was on car depreciation, I referenced a Consumer Reports breakdown of how much costs of ownership is in the first 5 years. This got me wondering could anything purchased be broke down in this way? Could this be useful information?

Livermore Centennial Light Bulb

Stand for Something - Preventative Medicine for Scams and Ripoffs

" Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." 

Alexander Hamilton

There are so many scams and ripoffs around. I always think to have principles and to stand by them is one of the best defenses to schemes that try to separate you from your wealth.

Free Ride Project - Edmunds Style

Good ideas have legs. The Dave Ramsey "Drive Free for Life" has been duplicated by Ronald Montoya and Philip Reed of Edmunds.com. The idea has been sited in Australia as I posted previously. The name of the Edmunds duo's article is "The Debt-Free Car Project".

1996 Lexus ES 300 - Model of the Edmunds Duo