Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

Sword Point Saturday - Obstacles

We've talked about Success a great deal and I suppose we should give obstacles a passing mention.  I believe in positive thinking and focusing on the end result but that certainly doesn't mean that I would advocate burying your head in the sand.  Obstacles exist.  They are there to teach us something and to help us grow or to slow us up so that all the other pieces can be brought into alignment. 

That doesn't mean they are always fun or that I look forward to them.  Seeing obstacles in this light just makes me approach them differently.  I take a more tactical approach, a problem to be solved, not something to be dealt with in anger (I try anyway).

Do you currently have one big obstacle?

10 Sword Points will be awarded to everyone that tells us all about what that obstacle is at the moment.  As is the norm, you can leave a comment to this post or create a post of your own and link to this post.  What is holding you back from Success?

I'll start (even though I don't get points which is too bad because I would probably have quite a few by now).

My biggest obstacle right now is in trying to do too many things at the same time.  I am working on a dozen different things and so none of them get my full attention for very long.  If I were to focus on just one for a while, I'm sure that I could knock them out one right after another.  All my efforts seem diluted.

I know what I need to do about it but that's for next week.

Your turn.

Average People Can't Buy Average Homes

After looking around at houses the other day, I came to the conclusion that people must make quite a bit more money than I do.  My wife and I came home and ran some numbers through a mortgage calculator and figure that if we can make enough on the sale of our current house, we can buy an average home.

Out of curiosity, I went looking for to see what the people make and I came across an article that shows median family income compared to median housing prices for the first quarter.  It also shows the percentage of homes in the area that are affordable to people with the median income.

Salt Lake City, UT was the closest market to what we are looking at.  Median family income is $60,100.  Median house price this year is $269,000.  The percentage of homes in the area that the median income can afford is 31.6%.

I don't feel so bad now.

We Went Looking At Houses Yesterday

All the reading that I have done over the last 15 months couldn't prepare my mind for the reality.  I've been living out in isolation for 2.5 years and to go back into the city and look at house prices was a shock to my system. 

We went looking at new houses yesterday because a lot of times they are offering incentives and prices that are lower than existing homes.  From what we saw, it wasn't true. 

We had a hard time finding anyone from one company and when we finally did, he was nice but somewhat patronizing.  We told him the price range we were looking for and he said, "Oh, are you first time home owners?"

He's lucky that I just think things in my head and the sentry that stands guard over my mouth is really alert.

I'm not willing to put every single penny that I make into a house. 

Peak Oil Piqued My Interest So I Took a Peek

We're running out of oil.  You could argue that we've been running out of oil since they day we started using it.  We've never used so much before so we are running out faster.

If you don't mind a bit of doom and gloom, read Jim Kunstler's weekly posts about peak oil.  Sometimes it's a bit of rehashing of what he's said earlier but I would bet that all of us that post on a single topic (you know, like people who write about getting out of debt), hit on the same vein again and again over time.

Some things are important enough to repeat and repeat again.

The comments section of Jim's blog is also good reading.  I don't read all the comments because there are literally hundreds and some of them are as long as the post itself.  They range from one side (Jim, this is too much doom and gloom) to the middle (where people add useful information) to the other side (where these people not only see an oil crisis coming, they can't wait so they can run around yelling, "I told you so, I told you so").

I'd put myself in the first group.  I believe in mankind's ability to adapt and innovate, not that it's necessarily going to be fun or easy.  It would be easier if the information about oil was more openly discussed.

If you haven't heard about it, go check it out.  Now, let's talk about money.

Pay Your Bill On Time and Pay Late Fees?

That doesn't sound right, does it? 

Here are a couple of things that you may already know.

Credit card companies send out there bills shortly before the due date in the hopes that you'll wait a couple of days before replying.  Miss the deadline and they get to go after all the extra money.

Credit card companies set the due dates on weekends and holidays when they won't actually be in the office to process the payments.  When they come back to work, your payment will be processed as late.

Maybe you didn't know this one.

Many credit card companies don't just have a due date but they have a due time.  You have to pay your bill by the 15th and before 2pm (as an example) or it's considered late.  Go online after work and make the payment?  Too late even if it's the right day.

The cut off time obviously makes it too easy and too tempting for the greedy blood suckers credit card companies because a new practice has reached daylight.

Credit card companies just wait for the due time to pass before processing your payment.  Checks are set aside, queued in a specific order, "lost", until they are conveniently found after your due time is past.  Then they process it and add on a late fee and increase your interest rate.

When I first heard of this, I tended to believe it because, well, I trust credit card companies as much as the politicians that they have bought to represent me.  I didn't pass it on though because as evil as I think they are, it might just be a nasty rumor.

Well, a probe in India has found that credit card companies including Citibank, HSBC, ICICI, and HDFC Bank are doing just that.  Guess what?  If they are doing it to their customers in India, they're doing it in the United States as well.

"The report has also alleged that the banks delay delivery of bills and realisation of cheques towards payment just to charge increased interest rate, late fee and fines etc." [emphasis added]

I guess when all the weird rules can't get you enough money, just cheat and steal. 

What's in your wallet?

A blood sucking leach that has chewed it's way through the leather and is now trying to get a pound of flesh in any way that it can.

Full Article.

Reverse Amortization? Just Shoot Yourself and Be Done With It

I have to admit that I was fairly naive when it come to money until I really started looking into it.  There are a lot of things that aren't general knowledge (because banks and credit cards would miss out on some money) and there are some things that I have just never come across.  Writing this blog has shown me some truly disastrous things out there and this one needs to be somewhere near the top of the list.

I thought that EBP loans were bad but I have come across something worse.  What's an EBP loan?  The reason you probably haven't heard of it is because I made it up.  You have probaby heard it called an "interest only" loan, which is such a misnomer that it should be illegal under false advertising laws.  You don't pay only interest as the name would have you think.  People with these loans are paying interest, insurance, taxes, and usually PMI.  The only thing they aren't paying is anything toward the principle of the loan.  They aren't reducing the balance at all.  They are renting their own house.  So I call them what they should be called, "Everything But Principle (EBP)" Loans.

These loans are usually a bad idea but they pale in comparison to reverse amortization.

Customer Service and Gas Mileage

This is part four of the car purchase posts.  If you need to catch up, here is part 1, part 2, part 3, and a side trip about that day and the funniest part of the car purchase.

My parents and all of my siblings have bought cars from Saturn of Riverdale.  I don't know how many cars we have bought but it's probably close to 10 by now and it will likely be more.

This is obviously good for the Saturn dealership.  That's a bunch of cars that they don't have to advertise to sell.  Saturn was our first stop when we went looking for a car.

There are a couple of ways to look at this from Saturn's viewpoint.  They could quit trying because they have some fairly loyal customers.  Maybe we'll all just keep on coming.  Some companies take this route.  They work hard to get customers, to gain trust and loyalty, and then they move on to the next customer.  Loyal customers are expected to keep on returning based solely on the loyalty and the fact the business did a good job for a while.

To me, it seems like there would be more pressure on Saturn to make sure my family has a great experience.

Sword Point Saturday - Customer Service and a Winner

Part 4 of the car story will be tomorrow.  I lost track of the days and didn't realize Sword Point Saturday was already upon us.

V has earned 25 Sword Points for getting the most votes in the first Success Warrior slogan contest.  There will be another slogan contest in the future so be watching.  Congratulations to V!

Today everyone can earn 10 Sword Points.

Just like Your Definition of Success, you can leave short answers in the comments section or you can post a longer answer on your own blog and link it to this post.

What I would like to hear today is what you consider to be good customer service.  You can explain it as a definition of sorts, what good customer service is to you, or you can tell us all a story about good customer service, something that shows as a shining example for you.

All the stories and definitions have to be about *good* customer service.  Let's keep it positive today.

Everyone that takes the time to participate will earn 10 Sword Points.

You can still earn points for posting your Favorite Frivolous Expense.  Next week, I'm going to create a page where I can keep track of all the ways to earn Sword Points.  Tomorrow I'll do the last post (I think) about the car purchase and the value of customer service.

What do people have to do to get and keep your business?

Saturn of Riverdale - Just Looking Around

This is third part of a series.  Part one is here and part two is here with interesting side trips here and over at Chronicles today (I'll add the post link later - here it is).

We were heading into town on an errand, talking about moving, and we were going to be driving right by Saturn of Riverdale.  We were going to need a new car if we moved so I thought it might be a good idea if we stopped in to have a look.  I had no intention of buying a car but I wanted to look to see what they had and just start thinking about it.

We went into town on our errand and then went further north to check to see if Tia's grandpa was at his greenhouse.  He wasn't there so we went back to the freeway and came back down to the car dealership.  It was the quickest way to get back to the stores that we wanted to get to anyway and once again we would be going past the car dealership.

It was fate.  Or heavy traffic and traffic lights if we came back any other way.  Fate sounds cooler though.

Saturn of Riverdale - Our First Experience

Our car blew up.

A couple of years ago, we were on one of our grueling day long stock-up excursions because we live across the wasteland in a place that only exists because gambling is legal in Nevada and illegal in Utah.  Every month or two, we have to go in to the city to pick up things that you can't buy out here.  That list includes everything except groceries.  You can buy groceries here.  It costs more because they have you by the short and curlies but at least you can eat.

It was about 6pm and we were done for the day.  We were going to get something to eat and then get home.  It looked like we might actually be home before midnight.  That would be nice since we usually had to get up at 5 or 6am to start these trips and we usually came dragging in at midnight.  It was hot and had already been a long day and we were thinking happy thoughts about being home kind of early.

That's when the car blew up.