Hmmm… I’m glad you asked. Originally financial concepts caught my attention as they pertain to my own situation.  Then I undertook financial planning as a profession.  Learning what I could about personal planning, people, and the interaction between the two was quite an experience.  My main goal was to help people make better choices, and that will be the focus of any financial topics I choose to write about here.  I no longer am in this profession, and feel it is appropriate for me to provide an opinion based on my experience from both inside and out of the financial planning world.  General concepts are all we shall cover here.  If you are looking for recommendations to buy and sell individual investments you may be in the wrong place.  I regularly read from a wide variety of sources and plan to open discussions on the important issues I find.  I’ll provide reminders for sound personal financial practice throughout the year.  If you value overall financial health and security, please come back.  I’ll do my best to give you some good ideas.

Well, as always, it seems like 5PM on Friday was just a few minutes ago.  I’m not even sure where to start.  Zhao and I made our way to all you can eat pizza on Friday night.  I’ve been a bit drained and thinking it’s too damn cold to go biking so I resorted to riding indoors.  I had some stupid technical issues come up, like the high pitched whine from my laptop’s hard drive, and the new install of Ubuntu Linux not recognizing my sound card.  If anyone wants to take a stab at that I’ll fix you dinner, come on down

Yesterday, I did get some things accomplished. And the friendly neighborhood Girl Scouts stopped by to sell cookies.  Yep, I bought some.  Last year when I bought cookies my roomate had not heard of this American Girl Scout Cookie thing.  I had not known that I needed to tell him but he was still suprised by their smiling faces, asking for money.  I made sure to tell my current room mate to prevent the repeat.  Finally decided to part with the infamous dollar from Cafe Jordano in case MC or Mike H are reading. Had a nice chat with my cousin in Israel and she told me I needed to practice my Hebrew more, like right then.  What can I say, she was right – Nachon!  Patria and I saw “Munich” last night.  Pretty good film.  Sad story, but it makes you think. 

Today was mostly house stuff too.  Finally got some of my notes transcribed so I could toss the scraps of paper they are written on.  One more leeetle pile and I’m caught up.  Oh and check out my brother Blaise here, Mantastic 2006, it’s a company contest.  Good for a laugh or two.  Well, I’m calling it a weekend, have to get my rest as I may have some work travel this week. 

Yeah, so the past couple days I’m feeling like these new years resolutions are gonna be tough.  Wondering if I’m biting off more than I can chew.  It’s one of those interesting sensations that I am putting a noticable amount of energy in a few of the goals simultaneously, but not seeing any results yet.  It’s one of those things where I know I need to take a step back from it and think.  I know that all the goals I’m currently working on will need time, and consistency.  But that doesn’t cooperate much with the “I want changes now” attitude.  It’s more diffucult than stepping back and thinking it over, but I’m sure it will help me gain some perspective.

The message of it all is this: If you too are wanting to see immediate results for your efforts, perhaps you should step back and evaluate if they are goals that will take a long or short time. If they’ll take a while, be patient with yourself.  Otherwise call yourself the slacker that you are and get it on!

Cheers!

Well, with a couple weeks under my belt I thought I should fess up.  I’m keeping up with the physical activities part of the game.  I have either ridden my bike, or gone to the gym 4 times per week.  Automation of financials will be done the end of this week.  As I write this it is more consecutive posts than the past few months.  I’ve been working through some books/tapes about hebrew and my ideas of where this passive income may be coming from.  I don’t plan to flip a switch and have it all done, but I am inching as much as I can for now.

On another note, this weekend made for some awesome riding.  Saturday was a group mountain bike ride up the old “Monday Ride” route.  We spent quite a bit of time climbing chimney gulch and up to the Nature Center, then descended Apex Trail, opting for the Sluicebox-Pick N Sledge loop.  Today held a 3.5 hour roadie ride starting in the Highlands neighborhood, going out through Golden, around the southern side of Bear Creek Lake and back.  A bit windy, but 60-70 degrees F both days.  A little warming just before the snow.  Right now, I am satisfied with how tired I am from the weekend.  Confident I’ll sleep well for a head start on the coming week.

Well, it’s another new year and I can’t wait to get crackin’ on my resolutions. At least I have put some thought into the goals for the year.  To celebrate new year’s eve Patria and I went out for a nice dinner, then watched the fireworks downtown.  To celebrate new year’s day we managed to get out for a 3 hour bike ride.  It was beautiful out, a bit windy, but just the right temp for a nice ride.

What about them resolutions???  Since you asked…

1. Get my sleep schedule in order.  Stop staying up late, get up on time or early, have time for breakfast. 
2. Four days physical activity per week.  Get out on the bike, go to the gym, go for a hike – bottom line, more activity.
3. Financials automated.  Now that I have regained a stable income situation instead of the variable one of the past few years I want all the deposits, payments etc. automated so there is no more brainpower used by this task.
4. Keep in better touch with family and friends, more updates on bensroadtrip.com. I plan to at least run monthly updates describing what’s happening here in Ben Land.  I’ve also turned on the different syndication feeds, and plan to send brief reminders from bensroadtrip.com to the people who are interested.
5. Continue travel even though this year may have to be stateside.  There are a few trips in the US I’d like to take this year.  Back east is high on my list, also a trip to Cali to visit family.
6. Conversant in Hebrew by years end.  This will be a tough one, but after my last trip to Israel one I’d really like to accomplish.  Note I did not say fluent, but I would like to be able to speak with my relatives who do not speak english without assistance.
7. Teach patria to drive stick shift.  Not sure if this should be on my list or hers .  If I am successful, it will free up some time driving to and from bike races to - – - STUDY Hebrew.  All right, just kidding, it’s just a good idea if she can drive any vehicle she needs to.
8. Generate some passive income.  This could be websites I host, to property management.  Yes, it is vague, at this point.  I will refine it a little bit at a time.
9. Charitable work.  While I’m not currently in a postion to donate cold hard cash.  I would like to do something for those in need.  I have a few ideas in the works, and they will be appearing in their own category here in the blog.

As you can see, my work is cut out for me.  Should make for an interesting year.  I hope you find the experiences I have time to write about enjoyable or at least helpful.  Have a good night, I’m off to bed to work on goal #1!