Mind Dump - Exam, Missing Money, Paul Volcker, Smartphone, Car Maintenance

Just a bunch of stuff that I didn't deem necessary for an entire post by themselves.

First the exam. I am most certain I fail it. I say this because I didn't finish the last section which was the essay. They are a lot of excuses I could give for this and they may honestly constitute to why I failed but in the end I didn't finish and I don't believe I prepared well enough and if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Last week Friday I went to put a little money onto the money market account I use for our wedding savings. When I got the balance update it was short of $200. I mentioned this to the account rep and he had such a perplexed and scared looked I found it funny. I calmly mentioned I am sure I have the deposit slip at home and I will bring it so it can be corrected. The following Monday morning I was in his office having it corrected. After I left Friday he did find the missing deposit so we just fixed it on Monday, it was a deposit I did a day when the system was down so I figured from the get go that was where the issue came from. Still, even Monday as he was correcting it for me he still seemed perplexed as to how it happened. It was kind of strange as in I don't know if it was because he cared, if it voids something in my contract(although this is something I should know), if he is just really professional and the company has high standards, I just don't know. I guess I was calm though because I had my receipt so I know everything would have been taken cared of. Being a PF head rocks. I am so in control. It was a small mistake to me and even if it was $10000 so long as he handled it swiftly and professionally I would still consider it a small mistake. I like the place so it's no harm done. The moral here is, always keep your receipts, especially deposit slips, I would say at least a year for deposit slips or at least until you are comfortable that the money is cleared and for receipts I would say keep them for as long as the warranty time or until you are sure you can't return them.

Monday night this week this small finance fish took a swim in a big finance pond. I attended a lecture in which this big finance fish was the featured speaker. Let's see if this picture is worth using.

That guy you see there in case you don't know him is Mr. Pual Volcker, who for one part of his career was the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. His wiki page that I linked to will give you a much better description than I could type off hand. He gave a lecture here in wee little Barbados entitled Reflections. In a nutshell, he reflected on his 60 year(read: sixty freaking years) in finance and economics. The guy is 85 and the knowledge he has in his head is probably worth more than I could afford. He gave his views on the current state of things, the past, the changes he saw, the changes he predicts to come and he also gave advice. Nothing much strictly personal finance related but it was a learning experience. A few things he said that I would like to highlight and share are

• He said people lack discipline and this is the main cause for the financial collapse we experienced and are in some ways still experiencing. People and businesses had access to easy money and they lacked disciplined.
• He predicts China will be a major world power in 10 years given their GDP and how they are advancing. He sang a few praises about Canada's financial governance so be proud Canadians.

Lastly I want to give a quick mention about that new smartphone I purchased. It is awesome and worth every cent I paid. Full review to come soon. I even created an actual budget because of this awesome app I found that I wanted to use for tracking. It requires a budget to track expenses so I created one. So far I am loving it and I am enjoying tracking again.

Oh yea, I almost forgot this one was on my mind. The car. I have to replace the CV joints and I've been trying to put it off because it isn't properly budgeted for. This post by Judy reminded me that they are repercussions to putting of stuff, like worse damage and a more expensive repair so I am going to go forward with it. I am a bit concerned about the price my mechanic is charging me for labor but I'm going to suck it up for now. After a quick google search it seems reasonable and he is allowing me not to pay all up front and without any added interest for paying at a later date. I will still ask around to make sure it's reasonable though because even if I have flexible payment terms, paying more is still paying more and I prefer not to owe anyone money anyways so paying up front is better.

That's it. How are things going for everyone?