In 2006, I purchased an XBOX 360 bundle from CostCo for about $550, including the console, a game and two wireless controllers.

In April of 2007, my 360 caught the “red ring of death” (“Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!“), at which point I brought it back to CostCo and exchanged it for the bundle they had available at the time, which was $475. They refunded me the difference!

Save yourself the Suzy whoever and read this instead:

1. Be humble
2. Take calculated risks
3. Have an emergency fund
4. Mix it up
5. It’s the portfolio, stupid
6. Average is the new best
7. Practice patience
8. Don’t time the market
9. Be a cheapskate
10. Don’t follow the crowd
11. Buy low
12. Invest abroad
13. Keep perspective
14. Just do it
15. Borrow responsibly
16. Talk to your spouse
17. Exit gracefully
18. Pay only your share
19. Give wisely
20. Keep money in its place

OCTOBER: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The other are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

-Mark Twain

I find the idea of kids coming home from college to live with their parents again with they start a career, save for a house and build a relationship to be interesting. I like my kids, so wouldn’t mind this (although they’re not teenagers yet, so who knows if I’ll still like

This one’s a double-header:

Eric Sink talks about how to find a product to build (if you’re a micro-ISV).

Since our credit scores have become such a big part of our lives, it has become federal law that everyone be able to get a free credit report annually. As of December 1^st, 2004, the western states are eligible and the web site lists when other groups of states will have access. For a blow-by-blow, check out the write-up on the Personal Finance Blog.

Here.

I found a new site focusing on a topic near and dear to my heart — educating kids about money — so I thought I’d log it for future reference (although you’re free to read my thoughts about it, too : ).

I’m a huge fan of talking to kids about money (actually, I’ll talk an adult’s ears off about money, too, if given half a chance – I once lectured Matt Pietrek and his girlfriend on the topic for an hour over pancakes [sorry, guys…]). When I was growing up, the training I got in school about money management has how to write a check, i.e. how to be a good little consumer. I also learned the basics of compound interest, but not as related to anything real, e.g. buying a house or saving for retirement. Most of what I didn’t learn in school, I also didn’t learn from my parents because one of them (who managed to buy high and sell low during the recent market correction) isn’t any good at money management and the other was very private about such things (although has been opening up on this topic recently).

Me, I go the other way. While they know not to talk about it outside of our immediate family, my kids know how much my wife and I make, how much we spend month to month, how we’re saving for their college education, how we’re saving for retirement, the investment property I’ve purchased with my money-savvy brother-in-law (whose parents also refused to talk money with him), etc. The Sells brothers have their own allowance that goes up annually on their hire date aka their birthday. I act as their bank, keeping track of their income and expenses in an Excel spreadsheet as they deposit and withdraw money, limiting them to a single week’s “advance” on their allowance (giving them the choice of spending what they’ve got now vs. saving for what they want in the future). In the future, I plan on letting them maintain their own balance sheet (subject to random audit), like my Mom let me maintain mine on a paper check register (I guess I did learn a little something from my parents — come to think of it, the way I award allowance is just like my Mom, too — way to go, Mom! : ).

Here. Someone sent me a fabulous follow up email to

Here. Gurley sums up nicely the tendency of the IT

Here. The recent economic conditions caused me to become very interested in not just making money (I’ve always been a capitalist : ), but also in keeping a careful eye on it. In the past, I’ve let most of the

Let’s say that you have $1000 to invest. The first year, you invest it and get a 25% return, so you leave your money invested. The next year, the market doesn’t do as well and your return is -15%. What’s the average rate of return over the two years? You way think that it’s 5%, that is, (25% + (-15%))/2. Let’s do the math for 25% and -15%:

• Using simple interest, after 1 year, $1000 + $1000 * 25% = $1250
• After 2 years, $1250 + $1250 * -15% = $1062.50

Chris’s Notes on The Instant Millionaire: A Tale of Wisdom and Wealth, Mark Fisher, New World Library, 1991. I recommend this book for folks that are willing to believe that the act of willing something to happen hard enough will make it happen.

On the one hand, I’ve solved many an engineering problem by simply letting my subconscious know that it needed solving. On the other hand, I’ve never been able to successfully wish for something to happen. The question is whether you view this book as channeling your subconscious energies into finding ways of making your dreams of financial independence come true or whether you view it as a fairy tale.

Chris’s Notes on Stock Options For Dummies, Alan R. Simon, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2001. I recommend this book for folks that need to know the details of their company’s stock options, although the details aren’t interesting enough or important enough to warrant a book of this size, especially given how worthless most company’s stock options are these days.

I bought this book when I was too stupid to recognize it as a book about a company’s stock options instead of about publicly traded options. In general, the strategy that I’ve developed if I ever get the opportunity to exercise company stock options is as follows:

Chris’s Notes on All the Math You Need to Get Rich: Thinking with Numbers for Financial Success, Robert L. Hershey, Open Court Pub Co, 2001. I recommend this book for the basics it covers, the slim size, the exercises and the approachable text.

I graduated from high school with all kinds of wonderful math grades (I finished all of my high school math a year early and had to attend a calculus course at a nearby college in my senior year), but managed to get out without a firm grasp of some simple ideas. Specifically, I never learned why it is that when I make a fixed house payment, the actual amount that goes to the interest and to the principle varies each month. The reason this is (as I’m sure all of my readers already know) is because the interest is only paid against the outstanding principle that remains on the total loan each month. It’s just like compound interest in reverse (an idea that I always did understand).

Chris’s Notes on The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How The Fool Beats Wall Streets Wise Men And How You Can Too, David Gardner, Tom Gardner, Fireside, 1997. I don’t recommend this book for anything but an example of the hubris that was rampant during the Internet bubble and a few chapters that hold the reader’s hand making the markets seem approachable.

In general, I recommend Peter Lynch’s Learn to Earn for the hand holding instead.

Chris’s Notes on Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom, Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter, Warner Books, April, 2000. I recommend this book for the way it twisted my head around.

There aren’t any “how to” details in this book, but it still had some pretty valuable ideas in it that really changed my thinking and inspired me about what’s possible:

In general, I suspect all members of the financial education market, from authors to radio talk show hosts and everyone in between. When I obtain financial independence, I don’t plan on teaching anyone but my own friends and family. Why would anyone do otherwise except to fleece the public?

And then, having said that, I realize that every single book I’ve written, I wrote because I had a burning story to tell; I couldn’t not write it. My motivation to write novels is grounded in my need to take my writing into a completely different direction w/o the requirement of generating an income stream. So it’s likely that at least *some* of the folks in the financial education market are in it for love, but how can you tell which ones?