Managing your Money

I've always wondered where most (hmm.. actually all) of the money from my paycheck vanishes. It looks like I'm getting paid, paying bills, debts, & loans - all virtually, expect for few times when I take some cash out to play poker and dine, I don't see much cash.

Do we ever get to see the money in real that we make in a month, like the old days? I remember my dad setting aside a monthly budget in all cash. Oh.. that smell of the new currency notes.. I simply love it. With most of the population catching up on plastic cards (as if that money on those cards were free), it might not be too late to see currencies world-wide in a museum. ;)

When coming to managing this hard earned money, there are very few softwares out there that does this job, not perfect though, but just enough to get by and give us a peek preview of what/where/how we play with our money. Quicken and Bank of America's (BOFA) Portfolio Management are the two that readily pop up on my mind. I have used Quicken before and I'm using BOFA regularly.

Recently, a new kid showed up in this block, named Mint. They call themselves the refreshing money management software. Well, I was fortunate enough to know about this startup thru' TechCrunch blog and I was one of the early beta testers. They won the TechCrunch40 $50,000 award.

They seemed to have nailed the application to give you the right personalization tool to manage and save money (for real!) for users who have no or limited computer knowledge, while excelling in giving a tool for computer geeks like me. I love their interface and their name (and their punch line - refreshing money management -- how true!). I don't want to give a lengthy lecture about what/how they do.. just skim thru' their website and you'll know what I'm taking about.

With identify theft hitting all year highs, most of us may not trust a third party software and give us our financial passwords (and thus our freedom) to them. But, hey, what's life without risk, I've given mine and its good to know that I'm doing more shopping recently, more than I thought of. I also came to know that I could save approximately $35 every month if I opt to make my own coffee instead of gobbling lot of Caramel Macchiatos from Starbucks. Now I know where my money is vanishing!! :)

One Click at a Time

Have you ever clicked on any of the ads (sponsored links) served in the Google results page?

Thinking of Google and searches, I could have easily made at least several thousand searches in the past few years (specifically with Google, few with MSN and Yahoo). But when I count how many times I've clicked on any of the ads... I remember is it 500, 100, 50, ... nope, just a mere 10.

I've always wondered how Google made so much money just out of delivering text ads, while for a guy who lives on Google searches (both at home and at work) doesn't click any of the ads served.

May be, millions and millions of people clicking thru' (at least once) is big enough to reach a hefty profit -- in billions. It may be the "one-click-at-a-time" policy working in full action. :) But how many of the clicks really benefit the advertiser?

Google and other major players charge advertisers based on pay-per-click (PPR), but how many of that clicks (or leads) that point to the advertiser's website is turned into a sales? That's questionable!

Well, until I figure this out, search and enjoy! For fun, trying googling your name.

PS: I've added "Google Ads" on this blog. And, no, I'm not trying to make millions out of these ads. :) It is just for fun!

Waves and Babes

For the Labor day long weekend, me and three of my friends decided to go to San Diego, as there was another gang (including my brother) coming down from Phoenix to escape the intensive heat. Well, we thought, why not join the group and cool it off with the nice waves and babes (yeah, babes!). That's exactly what we did.

Some interesting stuff (at least for us) that we did over the weekend:

• I tagged 130 mph (twice) in my friend SG's BMW for the first time -- posted speed limit is 65 mph. That adrenaline rush was simply awesome. Would love to try again. As a note, we didn't hurt anybody in this process and this was for pure fun. If I got caught in this process, I'd have gone straight to jail. Now I know, why they have speed limits. :)
• Did "Boogie Boarding" on the beach front. It was pure fun. Everyone should give it a try. We stayed almost 4 hours on the sea and finally caught three nice waves. That was more than enough for a first timer.
• We all got a nice (?!) tan and were shocked to see our faces in the restroom mirrors. :)
• Stayed all night long, hit some pubs on a street with nice ambiance and drank some decent beer.
• Spent at least 25 minutes on average to find a parking spot everytime we go out to San Diego beaches and/or pubs. That sucks! Finding a spot in Chennai was much better.
• Smoked "hookah" at a Hookah bar and talked our hearts out.
• Oh.. I forgot, did I mention cute babes everywhere, I mean "everywhere". San Diego is famous for nice weather and nice girls. We took it all-in. :)

As the saying goes in San Diego, "no beach is out of reach", the beaches, waves and the babes were all well connected and it was so nice to see 'em all. :)

Live in this moment

I got an email forwarded from my friend MK recently and I loved it. I thought let me share this with you all. Thanks MK.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help". There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?". The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way". What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it".

Do you think the first sign & the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively. Invite the people towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear. Don't believe your doubts and doubt your beliefs. Life is a mystery to solve not a problem to resolve. Life is wonderful if you know how to live!

How true! Most of us regret the past & worry about the future and conveniently forget to live the present -- this moment -- which is precious and won't happen again. Well, I'm giving my best to live in this moment.

I went to a "Art of Living" introductory class few weeks back and one of the key aspect they mentioned to be "happy in life" is to live in the present, as if that was easy...