Written by astoner on 24 January 2008
I was originally just going to post this as comment to a post at Get Rich Slowly, but thought I would expand it out to a full blog post here.
He makes no claim to be an economics expert, nor do I make such a claim. He just gets quite a few requests for his opinions on national economic issues.
The three recent issues he talks about are:
- Stock Market Woes
- Economic Stimulus Package
- Fed Rate Cut
I don’t worry too much about the stock market as really the only money I have in it is my retirement which I shouldn’t need for 25 years. I do worry about how it could indirectly me effect me through my job and other areas.
My wife and I have already talked about what we might do with a refund check from the government. The clear winner was save it. Does this make us unpatriotic? I don’t think so. The government and media sends such mixed messages
on personal savings. On an individual basis we’re encouraged to save, but on a national scale, it’s ‘SPEND SPEND SPEND’. This is old news, but back in 2005 it was reported that the personal savings rate dropped to zero percent. I couldn’t find a citation for it but I think more recently than that I’ve heard the savings rate has gone negative on occasion. I should note here that we may keep a little of the money out for personal fun money or something, but most will get saved.
I make no claim to understand the fed rate cut. I can’t say if it’s good or bad. I do worry about future economic issues that the rate cut and stimulus package will have. I realize there are large issues at play here but suppose we get $1000 check from the government. Where does that money come from? In my mind it looks a lot like consumer debt that we, or our kids, will have to be paying back with interest.
I did sort of like the idea of the rate cut in that I might be able to refinance the mortgage at a lower rate although that’s questionable. We are already in a fixed 30 year mortgage with a good rate. If we can get a half to three quarters of a percentage point cut we’ll look into it further. I do also believe there is a limit to how low the banks can/will even go on their rates, they need to cover their overhead.
I hadn’t thought about the aspect of the rate cut effecting my high yield saving account. My FNBO Direct Account is currently yielding 5.05%, which I suppose will be going done soon. That’s a bummer.
I do try to filter out most of the news on these issues. Or at least not let them get to me. Like J.D. said in the original post that got me going:
If you’re living within your means, avoiding common financial traps, and exercising sensible habits, you’ll be fine.
I agree with this statement. I can’t say that I’m always true to it, but I do try.
Allen
—– Added
I was continuing to read down my blog list and came across a good post on The Simple dollar giving some of the ins and outs of the fed rate cut. Be sure to read the comments as well, as they’re very insightful too.
Tags: economic, fed, Financial, rate cut, savings, stocks
Posted in Financial | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 20 January 2008
Things have been a little slow here lately on getting any blog posts written. I have been reading a bunch of different blogs on blog marketing and internet marketing, among other things, and came across this post, The Weekly Winner Contest on Mixed Market Arts. I figured I would go ahead and enter my first blog contest. Collin writes a blog about a lot of topics I am just getting started at learning:
- Blog Marketing
- Blog Marketing Blog
- Increase Website Traffic
- Link Building
- Link Building Blog
- Internet Marketing
- Internet Marketing Blog
I wish I had started learning internet marketing and making money from the web years ago. I started using the internet before the web even existed, using command line ftp and thinking gopher was a great user interface.
To enter the contest all you have to do is write a 250 word blog post on your blog with a couple links back to his site. The real wild thing is, you only need to enter once and have chance to win the $25 weekly prize as long as the contest runs, you can win as often as possible as long as the contest runs, the only limit being once per month. He will give at least four weeks notice when he plans to end the contest.
He is giving away as much in a month in this contest that is as much as my current goal to be making from the internet. The link back could do lots for my traffic count as well.
Allen
Tags: Blogging, contest
Posted in Blogging | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 15 January 2008
As much as I liked the previous theme I was using with the parchment look, I have decided to switch themes to the current one. The new theme is much cleaner looking as well as having Google Adsense already incorporated as well as an icon for the RSS feed subscription.
Allen
Tags: Blogging
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Written by astoner on 11 January 2008
I finally broke down and sifted through my four worm experiment bin. Remember, it was the one I had put the chicken feed in. Well I finally dumped it out onto a garbage to search through for any worms. It was smelling an awful lot like silage, I think the chicken feed was beginning to ferment.
Question: Can worms get drunk?
I was actually quite concerned for quite a while, i wasn’t finding any worms. I did ultimately find three so I’m hoping I just missed the fourth and that I threw him back into the bin with some bedding. It actually was going back into the bin much looser so it didn’t all fit back in. The extra I threw into a bucket that I’ve been aging for starting a new bin. What I’m hoping to discover was that there were some worm cocoons in the bedding and that it will self populate with worms. I wasn’t able to identify any cocoons. Ground corn can look an awful lot like a worm cocoon.
I think I’ll let the boys go for a little while before search theirs. At least we didn’t put chicken feed n theirs so they shouldn’t have the fermenting problem.
Be sure to check up on Bentley’s four worm experiment over at RedWormComposting.com. He is the one that gave me the idea for the experiment.
Allen
Tags: experiment, Vermicomposting, Worm Bin, worm castings
Posted in Vermicomposting | No Comments »
