A penny saved is a penny Earned

how hard is it to save money? i mean, honestly. how hard is it to save money? money goes to gas... money goes to food... money goes to xbox live... all necessities of life. and don't get me started on credit card stuff. i never considered myself a spendthrift, but i mean, a guy's gotta get his fix of fast food. and i 99.99% of the time get value menu stuff. VALUE menu.

quick bump: i was watching tv and i saw perhaps one of the most disturbing commercials. it was a breast milk commercial. yes yes, it's a beautiful thing, but a commercial? www.breastmilkcounts.com? don't worry, it's not a link to a dirty website. i promise. anyways, it was just weird. i feel like ross from that friends episode when he freaks out about the breast milk.

ok, back to life. back to reality. those dollars add up. those mcdoubles, hot 'n spicy's, crunchy tacos, large powerades from mcdonald's, really do add up. wow, when i put it that way, no wonder it's hard for me to save money. what a revelation! by george, i've got it!

so anyways, what am i doing to counteract this? well first off, i'm taking some classes. i've enrolled myself in a principles of accounting course and macroeconomics course. perhaps, i can control my spending and monitor my expenditures with a magnifying glass and a fine tooth comb. i always wanted to take some business courses just to familiarize myself with financial terms so that i sort of know what people are talking about when it comes to words like 0 down APR financing or consolidation or liquidity or variable rates? yeah, need to read up on those again. secondly, i started investing my money.

another quick bump: thanks laura for letting me borrow your investing for dummies book!

yes, i'm looking to become a day trader... yeah right. swing trading is where it's at. all i've heard is NOW is the time to invest... start when you're young... etc. etc. so, i'm going to do so. i have a penchant for gambling and i guess playing the stock market game is sort of like gambling. ups and downs, peaks and valleys, bears and bulls, buying and selling, stocks and bonds. don't worry, i, for the most part, still don't know what i'm doing yet. to make another friends reference, i feel like monica in that episode where she goes crazy buying stocks and invests in ones that sound cool, like ZXY because it sounds ZEXY. nice reasoning, mon.

hope you're doing well, scrooge! to all you kids, start saving! buy a piggy bank if you can... however, ironically, you would have to pay for the piggy bank. sometimes life can be so cruel... oh well. this little piggy is going to the market... the stock market that is. all you other piggies can stay at home, have roast beef, or have none. either way, at the end of the day, we're all going wee wee wee all the way home.

thanks for reading!

-jdv