Fancy Financial Footwork

I was watching Suze Orman on the telly earlier, and she had all these folk asking her questions about debt and financial management and pension planning.
I waited about thirty minutes and still she hadn't tackled the issue of paying off a Ferrari.
For that she gets a Brand Fail from me :(

So I decided to Google some of these finance guru's and see just what it is they had to say about our money and how we invest it.
I look after my own money and have been doing so ever since I realised my ex-broker didn't have the first clue about compound interest. We would meet once a month to discuss my portfolio and one day we were going through figures and I asked him to do a quick compound interest rate calculation.
Entry level mathematics to a broker.
He handed the calculator over to me and asked me how it was done
The next day I got rid of him and sent a letter of complaint to his company.

Here's a video I found showing Jim Cramer from CNBC, a rather well-respected investment "expert" in the industry, giving millions of viewers advice on a particular American Bank.

For every finance guru or any other guru in their respective fields out there, there will always be those who are doing it differently, and doing it better.

I've read Suze's books and she certainly knows her subject matter.
I've also read books by Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) and he knows his subject matter too.
Place the two books side by side and read the contradictions, and suddenly you start questioning everything.
Did you know the two of them don't even get along, let alone see eye-to-eye on finance issues?
You should read them lambast each other on Twitter and other social networking forums!



The best finance advice I ever got was from my Grandad, who also taught me most of what I know about business today.
"Look after the Pennies, and the Pounds will look after themselves."
OK he's also the same guy that drives a Toyota and gave me the sternest of lectures about wastage when I bought my first BMW, but his initial lesson certainly wasn't lost on me.

Sabreen asked me for a money-box a few weeks back, and I went out looking for one.
All I could find were these tiny ceramic piggy types.
Firstly they were too small, and secondly they seemed more like ornaments.
So I decided to get her involved and we made one out of an old 5l paint can.
Sure a 5l paint can may seem rather big, but who ever got anywhere by dreaming small?

Next step was to teach her to collect coins from the missus and I at the end of every day, and put it in her money-box.
Sure it took a week for me to convince her that the Monopoly money didn't belong in the tin, but once she got that lesson she was just fine.

She started putting notes in the money-box when people came home and she figured that showing them her tin usually ended up with them giving her money to put into it.
Now she scoffs at the coins and waits expectedly for the notes.
Which means I'm now too nervous to come home with cash in my pockets, else they end up in her box!

The signs are positive that she'll be pretty good with handling money.