Money Blue Book

I just made the most wonderful discovery a few days ago. Well it was wonderful in my eyes at least. I sleep pretty late these days so I decided to take a stroll downstairs to the condominium lobby. I currently rent a unit in a medium size condo complex. We have a small cozy lobby area with a front management room that doubles as a sales office. However, now that most of the condo units have already been sold, the small lobby is now more of a reception room for guests. Since I almost always enter the building from a side gated entrance, I rarely pass through the main lobby. But on this particular day I decided to visit the lobby for no particular reason other than to have some place to walk to. When I got there I saw something that I hadn’t noticed before. Our building apparently stocks a free complimentary automatic Flavia coffee and tea maker for guests and residents to use! I’m sure some readers are rolling their eyes going “oh brother” at my almost whimsical fascination with my “treasure find”, but it’s a big deal for me. While Flavia coffee machines don’t exactly produce gourmet, five-star cups of coffee or tea, they do a decent job of churning out fairly acceptable drinks. They are also extremely convenient. Like most of the dispenser pod-based machines out there, Flavia coffee and tea makers utilize pre-made coffee and tea packets to brew the drink. You simply select select the drink you want by picking out the packet of your choice from among a set selection. Then you pop the packet into the machine and the maker instantly brews your drink in a few seconds. Piece of cake!

Free Complimentary Coffee and Tea Machine Stations Offer Not Only Convenience, But Also Help Me Save Lots Of Money

But it’s not just the convenience of having such a handy free machine at my disposal. Most importantly it’s the potential cost savings from here on out from not having to buy my own coffee and tea products anymore. I regard coffee and tea as the type of recurring expenses that play a slow but debilitating role at chipping away one’s paycheck savings. I lump them into the same common daily expenses that should be done away with to promote better money saving habits – other similar types of useless expenses include cigarettes for some, and lottery tickets for others. Sure they help sooth the senses and serve as mental relaxers and momentary fun for some people, but they really hurt your pocketbook and wallet in the long run. These small but cumulative expenses really add up over time – into the thousands of dollars per year even. If you were to drink just one paid coffee per day at $3 a day, that’s already $1,095 a year – and in fact, many people consume more than just one cup daily.

That’s why my discovery of a free complimentary coffee and tea machine in the convenience of my own apartment complex is so wonderful. Some might point out that the machine is being paid for by the condo fees exacted from condo owners, and that the rent I currently shell out to my unit owner is indirectly subsidizing the cost of the machine and the replacement coffee and tea packets, but I still consider it a great bonus. Now that I’m aware of its existence, I plan to maximize this benefit to its full potential. So long as the service is available to me, I plan to transfer the expense of my occasional coffee and green tea drinking habits to this free machine. Instead of continuing to buy the occasional Starbucks or Caribou coffee, or continuing to purchase my own green tea bags from the local Asian grocery store, I plan to save money by consuming drinks made by this complimentary machine exclusively. In some strange way it reminds me of that old TV show, “Married With Children” and how Al Bundy and his wacky family would completely raid the free cheese sample trays whenever they visited the local supermarket. But hey, if it’s free and it’s available to residents and guests alike, why not fully take advantage of it? I saw plenty of empty cups in the trash can so people are obviously using the machine so it might as well be me as well.

Drinking Green Tea Is A Healthy Habit – Drinking Free Green Tea Is Even Better

Besides, this will help promote more green tea drinking, similar to the bottled water drinking habit I’ve picked up for health purposes. From what I’ve read and heard, green tea is a very healthy product to consume on a regular basis. It’s uniquely rich in powerful antioxidants that not only inhibit the development of cancer cells, but are also effective in lowering bad cholesterol levels and help inhibit the development of abnormal blot clots that lead to heart attacks. Since my Flavia machine discovery, I now visit the 24 hour unmanned lobby to grab a cup of free green tea after every home meal. I feel great health-wise, and so does my wallet! If you’re not convinced, maybe this will.

On a side note, this isn’t my first encounter with free Flavia coffee and tea machines. In my line of contract legal work I frequently move around and work at different office locations. Many of these law offices offer a variety of complimentary coffee and tea machine services. Sometimes the machine is Flavia and sometimes it’s a Keurig machine. They pretty much all operate the same way – requiring the deposit of a little coffee or tea pod to create your drink. They all taste about average compared to barista brewed drinks at Starbucks, but the free price tag usually makes up for any loss of taste (I guess I’m not a very picky coffee or tea drinker). Some of the bigger law firms and business offices even stock large automated Starbucks coffee machines that actually grind real coffee beans. They really make a nice consistent cup of vacuum perfected ground coffee. You can bet your money that I fully took advantage of those easy-to-use coffee machines when I was working at locations that offered those services for free. I was drinking to my health and my pocketbook.

This is not really a blog about my religious beliefs but what is Easter Sunday without writing a post about money and God?

Many Christians may have spent the morning waking up early to attend Easter Sunday service. Although I did not attend this year, my church chose to celebrate the early morning occasion by holding special holiday services in the great outdoors at a lakeside location in Columbia, Maryland where the whole congregation could worship together with the tranquility of nature.

For non Christians and those unfamiliar with the religious concept of Easter, allow me to explain why the holiday is so important to Christians. Well for starters, it doesn’t revolve around the Easter bunny and her basket of Easter eggs. I have no idea how a cuddly rabbit and her loot became the commercialized focus of the Easter holiday, in the same way I am unclear as to how Santa Claus became the figurehead of Christmas, the other major Christian holiday. But the reason why Easter is important to Christian church goers is because it commemorates and observes the third day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and became resurrected after His crucifixion by the masses. While the day is not filled with presents and celebrated with as much shopping related hype as Christmas, Easter is actually the most important Christian holiday because it remembers the day in history that Christ fulfilled His destiny to become the living sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.

Many ordinary folks tend to overlook the significance of this holiday. I don’t blame them. It’s not a particularly exciting holiday in the secular world. But it’s an incredibly important day because it goes to the very heart of the Christian belief. Easter is the day that we pray to God to thank Him for the goodness He has bestowed on our lives, and to thank him for the continual love that inspired Him originally to send His only son to suffer and die on the cross for us. To non-Christians it may not make much sense, but for myself as a Christian and a believer, it is a very personal day. Through Christ I feel relieved and forgiven for much of the ethical and moral dilemmas of day to day life.

The Eternal Struggle Between Mankind’s Love of Material Wealth and The Love Of God

One of the biggest struggles of all believers has always been the inevitable tension between the love for wealth and the love for God. It might sound strange and funny to be in love with money, but the fact of the matter is that many of us worship wealth. We love to make it, grow it, dream about it, invest it, save it, protect it, and find ways to spend it. Part time finance bloggers such as myself might know more about this than anyone else. We make it our part time duty to write and blog regularly about the topic of money. It’s almost natural for us to become obsessed with the subject of growing our financial wealth. But for those of us who are also Christian, sometimes this fascination can eclipse our humble obligation and duty to put God before everything else.

In fact, this very tension was addressed in the Bible’s New Testament Book of Matthew, Chapter 19, when Jesus Christ was approached by a wealthy man looking for guidance on what he could do to secure his entrance to heaven after his passing. Christ immediately instructed the young man to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor before attempting to pursue God. Christ knew very well that as feeble minded, obsessed, and greedy individuals, it was in our fallible and sinful nature to pursue material wealth and possessions above all else. In fact, upon hearing that he would need to give up all of his wealth to follow Christ, the wealthy young man walked away sad, because he knew giving up his riches would not be easy – his vast wealth meant he had more to lose.

Thus it rings true – it is much easier to seek God when we are poor and downtrodden because we have less to sacrifice. But as our financial wealth grows, it’s the natural tendency to become misguided and blinded with the comforts that material possessions bring. Christ knew this was the case when He later preached to His disciple students:

“I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:23 NIV.

The statement wouldn’t be so sad if it weren’t so true. I have met very few Christians in my life who I believed could truly give up all of their material possessions, fancy home electronics, and wealthy lifestyle for the promise of ephemeral treasures in the afterlife. In this ultra consumerism culture, we have grown so materially self indulgent with our trinkets and treasures that many of us don’t seem to heed the promises that God has laid before us anymore. We are all too easily corrupted by the pursuit of financial riches and worldly things that we have become blind and deaf to God’s words and admonishments. The more our personal wealth grows, the more we seem to to rely on our own abilities and our own financial means to carry us through life’s difficulties, and we stop seeking God’s guidance and blessings.

My Confession – The More Success I Have, The More I Seem To Stray From Church

I am by no means rich or even close to it, but I do believe it would be very difficult for a wealthy individual to genuinely and faithfully follow Christ’s teachings.

A few years ago, I was just out of school and struggled financially so during that time I attended church more regularly. I was active in the church, participated in bible studies, attended church fellowship events, and even joined the church praise worship band as the drummer. Now that I am beginning to thrive again financially and professionally, I find myself drifting away and attending church less and less. I am starting to spend more time tending to my job, my side businesses and my money making ventures, rather than attending Sunday church services or even praying. Even blogging has taken away much of the time I used to have for church fellowship events and I find myself more and more cut off from the church body of Christ. I truly am more fallible than I had imagined.

My pursuit for the meaning of wealth has seemed to blind me to what God has provided for me. I know God has a purpose and a plan for me, but my human ways seem to have blinded me yet again. Deep down inside I know that my money filled world will ultimately be empty without Him, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped me from wandering away from Him like a rebellious sheep. I do hope and pray that I will find my way back. This Easter Day, I hope I can refocus back on God and manage to put Him in first place in my life again. I know that God will never stop dishing out the blessings, but I do hope He’ll help me find a way to re-prioritize my life for the better.

When you’re standing in front of the cash register about to make a large purchase for hundreds of dollars, it’s easy to immediately recognize the high cost and the financial gravity of the situation. The price is high and it’s easy to see how the large one time expenditure is going to hit your pocket book. But what about those pesky little daily expenses that we often take for granted? They are just as effective at draining money, but the only difference is that they usually occur over a wider span of time. Those type of silent and hidden expenses do add up quickly over a month or even a one year period. It’s important to be aware of what some of them are so that we can learn to avoid these money traps and do a better job of pocketing the savings.

1) Bottled Water – Although I list this as my first money drain due to the consensus of many, it’s actually one daily expenditure that I personally find to be worth the daily cost. While not necessarily healthier in terms of purity, due to the convenience and the healthy consumption habit the act promotes, I actually think drinking bottled water is worth the regular cost. However, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. The right way is to buy bottled water in bulk supermarket 24 packs or in Costco’s mega 32 packs. The absolute wrong way is to buy them in single units from a place like a 7-11 convenience store or a gas station where their unit price is the highest. Why buy a single serving Aquafina for $1 or more when you can buy a large 24 pack for $5 or less? My local grocery store frequently offers special deals for $3 or less.

2) Coffee – It’s a common morning addiction but it’s an expensive one. Coffee drinks from places like Starbucks are so addictive I’m occasionally convinced that they must drip extra caffeine into the java brew to get consumers hooked. I’ve managed to ween myself off them but many people still find coffee to be an integral part of their regular morning routine. If you spend only $1.50 for a standard cup of coffee per day during the business week, consider yourself relatively lucky since you’re spending only $390 a year, comprised of 260 weekdays. What about those people like me who used to spend up to $5 a day on premium expresso drinks like my personal favorite – the white chocolate mocha? Premium coffee habits demand nearly $1,300 a year.

3) Alcohol – I’m not much of a beer or liquor fan, but many people are. If you hit the bars daily for a drink, at $4 a beer, that’s $1,460 a year. Even if you only went a few times a week, the cost of multiple beers add up fast. Mixed drink and wine prices usually go for much higher. If you love your beer, try buying bulk packs. With wine, consider buying wine in a box. Maybe because I’m not a wine expert, but many boxed wines seem to taste the same as bottled ones. It’s mostly just a difference of packaging in my opinion as a wine newbie.

4) Smoking – Cigarettes are not only bad for you, they are also very expensive. With local, state, and even the federal government enacting higher cigarettes taxes, the habit can only get more expensive over time. A pack currently costs around $4.50, which comes out to more than $1,600 a year, but many smokers don’t just consume one pack – some consume multiples. If you’re a current smoker, work hard to kick the habit. If not for your own health or family’s well being, do it for your wallet’s sake. It can be done – my dad kicked his fledgling smoking habit shortly before I was born.

5) Vending Machine Drinks and Snacks – Buying chips and sodas from vending machines will cost you. Depending on where the machine is located, you may pay $1 or more for each purchase. Do that once a day and that adds up to $365 per year. Can you really afford that? What you’re paying for is the convenience of getting what you want, when you want it. Try to wait till you’re at the supermarket where you can obtain the exact same thing for half price or less.

6) Frequently Eating Out – Going out to eat is my biggest and most substantial money drain. So far I haven’t been able to cut the habit or substitute it with regular home cooking, which is the frugal living solution to meal planning. I pretty much eat out for both lunch and dinner at this time in my life. With lunch prices at work costing upwards of $8 or more and local eateries near my home costing $10 or more for dinner, that’s $18 per day for meals, which comes out to more than $6,500 a year for food alone. That is way too much money being spent on meals for just one person.

7) Manicures and Pedicures – Manicures cost around $20 a pop. For women who are addicted to weekly manicures, that’s more than $1,000 a year for nail service that you could probably learn to do at home yourself. Is a thousand dollars a year really worth the momentary pampering?

8) Underused Monthly Memberships and Services – There are many membership plans that consumers frequently sign up for but either forget to use or end up under-utilizing. By not taking advantage of the monthly services paid for, you’re basically throwing good money away. The most commonly underused services include gym and fitness memberships, cable television services, and telephone plans. When it comes to telephone service, do you really need that land line anymore? What about your wireless phone plan – do you actually get close to using up all of your monthly plan minutes?

What about movie rentals? I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time – for just $16.99 a month you could rent three DVD’s at a time as often as you wanted. But how often is that really? Scan your credit card statement for those automatic monthly charges you normally just pay and ask yourself whether you’re getting your money’s worth. How often do you go to the $50 a month gym? Cancel what you’re not using. Underused services are financial drains that should be examined and reevaluated regularly.

9) Unnecessary Car Maintenance and Premium Auto Services – Unnecessarily frequent oil changes, car washes, and car detailing services – they all add up. Your car might be your baby, but your auto pampering may be costing you way too much money for a mere inanimate object that is likely depreciating slowly as I speak.

10) Credit Card Interest Charges and Fees – Using credit cards that offer rebates and cash back rewards may help you maximize your money when it comes to routine purchases, but if you’re not careful with card management, you might find yourself in serious debt trouble. Fixed monthly interest rates for credit cards are usually high and average around 13% APR but they often increase if you become delinquent on your payment obligations. Try to pay your statement balance in full each month. If you must incur a balance, work hard towards paying them off to avoid those unnecessary finance charges and interest fees that can rack up fast.

I can’t help it. I’m attracted to and fascinated by trashy reality television shows – the bigger the train wreck, the better. My newest reality fixation is Bravo TV’s new millionaire dating show called The Millionaire Matchmaker. This show could easily be the next logical step up for those party girls from MTV’s Super Sweet 16, which I previously wrote about.

The Millionaire Matchmaker features feisty Los Angeles matchmaker Patti Stanger who runs a modern and high end business of helping rich men fulfill their dreams of finding true love and potential wife, and helping gorgeous women marry into millions. On the show, her clientele of wealthy men pay a high fee to be introduced to an exclusive selection of beautiful and smart women, pre-chosen based on their compatibility factors. The men are given access to an array of high end staff of date coaches, personal shoppers, and interior designers to help them improve their personal self appearance and to spruce up the presentation of their millionaire dollar homes. Many of these men are workaholics who are usually too busy with their own careers to find time to date for themselves.

For women, joining the club is free so long as they can pass the high physical appearance requirements and aren’t red flagged as possible gold diggers. From the start, Patti makes it clear that she is no Heidi Fleiss madam and that her agency is not an escort service as she strictly prohibits sex until both parties have entered into a committed, monogamous relationship.

Progressive Female Liberals Need Not Apply

You’re not going to find any feminist trailblazers on this show. What you’ll get is no-nonsense traditional views of what men and women want when it comes to love and relationships, especially when money is no limitation. Caveman tenets of lust, love, and attraction apply – with men being attracted to beauty, youth, and fun; and women being attracted to material possessions, confidence, and power. It’s the age old swap of money for beauty. Just from watching a few episodes, it’s clear that millionaire dollar men feel entitled to a higher standard and quality of women than common folk. As the show astutely points out, millionaires choose women the same way they would order a new car off the lot – they want the perfect, newest trophy model gift wrapped to suit their existing lifestyle without the flaws.

The most entertaining and fun part of the show comes with the crazy bits of wisdom (if you can call it that) that flies out of head matchmaker Patti Stanger’s mouth. She’s a rambunctious firecracker who doesn’t hesitate to lecture and verbally slap her male clients around for their own tough love good, whom she views as misguided little children. I really like her and even though much of what she says can be considered abrasive and shallow, I think there is much hidden truths in what she has to say. She also seems to genuinely care in shaping her eligible millionaire bachelors into successful relationship putty – even if that means she has to ruthlessly critique their flaws to make them understand what’s wrong with their views and why they are unable to settle down into real relationships.

The Show Strongly Reinforces Stereotypical Male and Female View Points

The show perpetuates a timeless and traditional view of men and women that frankly, remains alive and well today. It is this very return to tradition that has been one of Patti Stanger’s keys to success as a matchmaker. She is harsh on both men and women, screening both for the perfect traditional matching qualities. The men are checked to make sure they are truly worth millions and the women are screened carefully to maintain a high physical appearance standard. Many of the show’s millionaire clients come to her with a particular female look already in mind that’s partial towards the young, model-type look. Perhaps as a genuine reflection of the unspoken views of society, the show perpetuates the understanding that what men want the most in women is beauty and youth. What women seem to want the most from men is power and money.

According to Patti’s values for there to be matchmaking success, this means men need to be chivalrous, they need to be generous with their money, and they need to take charge and be confident with women. Females on the other hand are encouraged and taught that they must accentuate their physical qualities – if they have nice “assets” they must flaunt it, they must dress alluringly to appeal to male tastes, and they must show a little leg here and there – basically don’t dress like you’ve just left work. Another disturbing but perhaps real life lesson is that she also lectures women on the need to downplay their own professional accomplishments – basically if you are a doctor, never introduce yourself as one initially – because when it comes down to it, men don’t want to compete in that department.

I Find The Show Entertaining Because It Reflects Many Unspoken Facets and Truths About Societal Views Towards Dating and Relationships

Whether the traditional values promoted by the show are right or wrong is not for me to say, but I think the reality is that despite the modern progress men and women have had in terms of human relations, in many ways we’ve stayed the same. Many commentators have blasted the show for perpetuating traditional stereotypical views of women and I understand why they are upset. But at the same time, the show is about hooking up men and women who want love, not about political correctness. Love is a crazy thing where traditional ideas still hold true.

Even though I think matchmaker Patti Stanger has a narrow view of what men want, I think she is frequently right on point when it comes to her true life assessment of male and female preferences when it comes to dating. Of course her traditional views may be controversial and humorously offensive to some – such as when Patti chided one of her prospective women for having red hair, because as she put it, red hairs are “not the freshest produce in the aisles” (presumably implying that red hair is old school and outdated). Dye it brown she ordered, because men don’t like red hair. If you have curly short hair? Grow it long or get hair extensions and perm it straight because men like hair that is long and straight so they run their fingers through it.

However, the show does seem to promote a worthy abstinence requirement as a way to keep the men’s dating motivations on the up and up (so to speak). Patti imposes a strict no sex policy until a committed relationship has been established. While this almost puritanical policy tries to inject some standards, it doesn’t detract much from the inherent meat market circus of matching up nearly two dozen attractive women with one rich man for his choosing. Then again, is it really all that much different when people post their personal profiles complete with physical attributes onto online dating sites like Yahoo Personals or eHarmony?

The Show Does Teach A Valuable Lesson – Money Does Not Always Buy Love and Happiness

As an ordinary non-millionaire Joe, I actually find some guilty comfort knowing that even millionaires have major trouble in the dating department despite their massive financial fortune. The show reveals that even millionaires can be fault ridden in the love department. The Millionaire Matchmaker’s stars are not the peddled and pimped out women who willingly submit themselves for selection, but rather the sleazy, cocky, and pathetic men that do the picking. In one episode you had one man in his late 40’s who despite his noble assertions of wanting to find true love with an educated and marriage-minded mature woman, still ended up picking the young co-ed nearly 20 years his junior out of the female selection pack despite having nothing social in common with her. Then there was the episode with the one rich guy who ran a successful online sex toy business who could not give up his player lifestyle of throwing female laden house pool parties or removing the “non-offensive” stripper pole bolted in his living room.

Their money might provide them housing comfort and material joy, but it’s also the same corrupting influence that clouds their proprieties and explains why they insist on finding their trophy sugar babes rather than their more age appropriate soul mates. Entertainment aside, the show does demonstrate that money doesn’t really buy true happiness. However, it will allow you to buy access into the Millionaire’s Club to meet plenty of long and straight haired young women, who are eager for you to lavish them with material attention – for the short term at least.

Check out Patti’s Commandments Of Dating for both men and women. Prepare to be entertained, offended, and dumbfounded at the same time. Her views really reflect on the current dynamics of male and female wants and expectations. Here is a sample of one of her thought provoking dating tips directed at women:

Once you have decided you like a specific male and you have gone out with him four times, it is important to show your appreciation and reciprocate. But do not offer to outright pay for something: once a woman touches money/credit card in front of a male she becomes masculine energy, which is undesirable. But this does not preclude showing thanks by purchasing him a CD, book, theater or concert tickets, just don’t do it in his presence. Offering to cook a meal for him is an exceptional, appreciative gesture. The number one small request a wealthy man makes of a woman is a good old-fashioned home cooked meal.

Masculine energy? Haha! Great stuff!