Personal

Once in a while we all just “HAVE to Have” something. I do this mainly with electronic stuff, and generally it works out well and I’m happy with the purchase.

However 5 months ago when I got the Treo 700w when it first came out from Verizon Wireless, I had made a terrible mistake. Unlike my “Have to Have” cameras or tablet pc, this phone came with a contract.

I’ve had my phone for about five months now, and here is what I’ve paid so far for the phone and phone bills:

Because I just HAD to have this phone immediately, I irrationally accepted the high monthly fees, high starting costs and the expensive low-end service plan. The high overages were part part Verizon’s fault for screwing up an order for a larger plan, and part my fault for being irresponsible. However in the end I’m paying the (very expensive) price of an emotionally driven purchase.

I went from loving this phone to hating it, as graphically portrayed here:

I don’t actually hate the phone itself, just what it represents. I rank this as my WORST PURCHASE EVER.

LESSON I LEARNED:
“Have to Have” purchases aren’t always bad, but when irrational thinking muddles the details of a contract, beware.

College courses are extremely expensive, you have to battle to sign up for them…..yet unlike other expensive stuff, no one guards the classes.

I was recommended by someone to take a graduate level management course taught by an extremely prestigious professor who has “been there, done that” in the business world.

Instead of signing up for this class, I just looked up the publicly available class time/location and started going! I told the professor I was not paying for the class, nor was I any longer a student, and he happily agreed to add me to the class. I imagine some professors would PREFER students who WANT to take the class over those taking it as a requirement.

When I was a student I used to sit in on classes where they would talk about subjects I needed more knowledge on (Particularly computer science classes where I wanted to know how something was created). The best part is you can go speak with the professor after class or in their office hours, and they are always more than happy to speak with you.

I never fully realized it when I was a student….but the university is one of the few places where you have world-class authorities on a subject, and you can access all their expertise free of charge.

It’s about time I change my old school email address. Nev@mail.utexas.edu just doesn’t look all that professional….although sometimes it’s good to email someone with a school email address…(Like on Craigslist).

Currently I am starting to use NevMed@gmail.com

However, an email such as nev@enwon.com would create more exposure because people will often type in www.enwon.com when they see the email.

I was also thinking of nev@neville1.com…Ideally I’d like nev@nev.com or something along those lines, but Nev.com and Neville.com have been taken and not-selling for years!

Now I have to change all my email addresses from all sorts of places before it expires!

I’ll also eventually have to change this business card. I don’t really care for cool business cards, I prefer the free ones from VistaPrint!

These days I’m pretty selective of what I read on a daily basis. I used to read a lot of personal finance blogs, but quickly lost interest after the same stuff gets repeated hundreds of times.

However I have always enjoyed blogs that document personal adventures in money making. The point of these blogs is not necessarily to educate the world about personal finance, but to track progress of money making and experiment with new and creative ways of doing it. I also enjoy lots of technology related sites.

ONLINE READING:
I like to keep track of the technology field, and a great way to do that is by keeping track of new trends, technology and tech news. Me as with most people stumble across the most interesting things via the most random web surfings.

– www.engadget.com – Gadgets and junk
– www.gizmag.com – Probably my favorite technology site.
– www.gizmodo.com – Gadgets and junk
– www.hackaday.com – I come across a lot of underground technology through this site.
– www.luxist.com – Luxury things, new trends.
– www.techcrunch.com – Technology related news, mostly about how “Web 2.0” no-revenue websites keep getting funding. However they always manage to report the LATEST tech news.

On a more sporadic schedule, I checkout:
www.business-opportunities.biz – Business blog aggregation site. Stumble across some nice articles time to time.

www.entrepreneurs-journey.com – Yaro from Down Under talks about his business experiences….although lately he has changed his format to “Blogging about Blogging” which I’m not a fan of. He has managed to financial support himself with his own ventures, so I admire that.

www.okdork.com – Noah Kagan documents his own biz journey. I’ve actually met up with Noah when he came to Austin a while ago where we met at a coffee shop near the UT Campus. The second after we shook hands and said hello, he proceeded to find a magazine to read in the bathroom….then disappeared for a very, very long time while I waited. His website is different, kind of immature and I’ve got a feeling Noah will jump into all sorts of wacky internet ventures and at some point hit it big.

www.howtobepoor.com – Max documents some of his side projects in a personal finance style blog. One of the few blogs I still read time to time because 1.) It’s different and 2.) He can actually think of a money-making idea and implement it himself because he’s also a great programmer. I wish I could program.

www.blogmaverick.com – I think it’s INCREDIBLY REFRESHING to read a blogger who has actually “Been there, done that.” Generally advice and opinions on the internet are dispensed by people who have never had any direct experience with what they’re talking about…..like those people who become millionaires only by writing a book ABOUT becoming a millionaire. Their advice will rarely help anyone. Mark Cuban however is a a busy-billionaire and still bangs out a great blog!

WEIRD BOOKS:
Sometimes I’ll randomly stumble upon a book which is not really a business book, but a business book in disguise. For example, when I met with John Moore, he was flabbergasted that I had already read a book called DEALING CRACK. It was a very short book about a student who actually went undercover in rough neighboorhoods to find out about the underground world of hard drug dealing. When they guy who headed up the Starbucks and Whole Foods marketing groups strongly recommends this book, there is something to it.

The reason I read the book was because of the way it described these micro-economies fueled by illegal drugs. It’s hard to exlpain, but the book captured the essence of supply and demand, customer care and business deals in such a raw and unique way that it was one of the top business books I’ve ever read.

BUSINESS BOOKS:
I’ve read quite a few popular business books, and quite frankly I hate most of them. They talk about the same stuff and dish out the same advice……what I enjoy are STORIES about successful people….especially if it’s autobiographical.

I believe the key to finding a book that may actually help is finding out who the author is. Is it someone who has never made any money except from hocking books ABOUT making money? Has this person actually accomplished anything in the field they’re talking about?

If I want to learn about making big money, I’d read an autobiography by Richard Branson or Donald Trump, or perhaps a biography about Larry Ellison or Bill Gates. The key is to read A LOT of these books, because everyone has different advice that worked for THEM.

Another way to find quality reading material is finding out what someone you admire used to read. Obviously if this impressive person has accomplished so much, they can tell you what material has inspired them. Often some of the most famous figures of our time have read timeless pieces of work like John Locke and Gandhi.

I’m always on the lookout for non-conventional reading material the masses overlook, so if you’ve got a great site or book suggestion, drop me a line!

I’ve decided if I meet certain goals every month, I will take a small vacation every quarter. These little trips may be just a long weekend type thing to visit friends in various parts of the country, or just to get lost in a new city.

So at least 4 times a year I will pack up for a few days and get out. While these trips will be mainly for fun, I’ll always be keeping my eyes open for new trends, ideas etc..

First destination is Chicago, I leave on Thursday.

I’ll only use the funds in my Spending 1 and 2 accounts for the trips. Therefore if I don’t meet certain monetary goals every month, I simply won’t have enough money to go. 10% of my income goes to the spending 1 account, and 10% goes to the spending 2 account.

I’ve already bought a ticket which cost me $300 roundtrip.

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Income and Expenses for the month of March 2006 were as follows:
Income: Exceeded $5,000
Expenses: $2,317

C u r r e n t B a l a n c e s :
-General Account: $2,370
-Spending Account 1: $413
-Spending Account 2: $590
-Investment Account: $2,130
-Bills Accounts: $1,517
-Permanent Savings: $5,215
-Charity Account: $338

-Stock: $10,715
-Roth IRA: $6,705
-Emigrant Direct: $1,007
T o t a l: $ 3 1 , 0 0 0

-Credit Card: $0
-Business Holding: $9,818
T o t a l o n H a n d: $ 4 0 , 8 1 8

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House of Rave profit this March was $1,915. Looking back at my 2005 profits from HoR, I made $946 last March 2005. The income has more than doubled with very few actual changes to the website or increase in time spent on the site.

The first step to the increased profits was “Bob” shattering my complacency with making $700/month from HoR by asking, “Can you make more money with it?” I told him I could, and I even knew how……I just never thought about applying those changes until he asked.

I attest the increased profits to a few very small changes. A small change with a BIG result was using Outlook instead of webmail, and integrating HoR customer emails with my personal email. This way I am forced to see customer concerns or questions immediately….not simply whenever I feel like checking them. There were also other minor changes such as taking my own pictures of products. I am around the $2,000/month profit level with House Of Rave, now the next step will be adding another $1,000 to that every month.

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On Monday (4-3-2006) I met Max of HowToBePoor.com, who is thinking of moving to Austin, TX.. It was fun talking to him and his wife, and I forced him to write good stuff about me on his website.

He’s been experimenting with Adsense, ecommerce sites and advanced programming….things that may not be extremely profitable at the moment, but he is building a strong foundation. I like.

There are TONS of people out there with lots of great ideas, but they lack the know-how to implement them into a viable businesses. Max has the advantage of knowing computers and programming inside and out, meaning when he has a good idea, he can act on it immediately without hiring a programming team. It’s always fun to make new like-minded friends!

I generally mention productive things I do, but I also need to check myself and analyze the things I haven’t done:

–I haven’t kept up with my online resume business: Resumite.com
–My excuse?
Charging $50 for a website where I must deal with individual people who know nothing about web pages would logistically kill my time/profit ratio. The person must email me their info, I must register DNS entries and deal with all the logistics of creating a page, then go back and forth contacting the person to check if they like the final product. I had plans to automate this process, but one site does not fit all. Even if I charged more money, the time required for each site would not fit in my schedule. This is a basically a long way of saying I was too damn lazy.

–I haven’t carried through with my traffic eradication experiment.
–My excuse?
I really wanted to do this, even though it was not a profitable idea in the short term. I wanted to do it…
1.) Because I loathe traffic.
2.) The exposure it would get.
This was a very good idea that would work perfectly in Austin if I could get around all the bureaucracy and federal laws involving public highways. The experience in navigating the government would be worth it alone. This experiment still fascinates me to this day…I’m not sure why I never carried through. I even got permission at several tall, nearby buildings to observe traffic patterns from a birds eye view. I still want to do this. I can see the headlines now, “College student defeats traffic“….or “College student causes worst traffic jam in Austin history“

–I haven’t kept up with FancyBlog.com
–My excuse?
I have no excuse for not adding one blog template a day to the site. I designed the page in a dynamic fashion, but it still requires a little work to make even small changes. I need to make the site into a blog-format, something I didn’t want to do initially. I also wasn’t into this idea that much. Once again, a drawn out excuse for laziness.

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These ideas haven’t failed yet. They simply have not been carried through, which in my opinion is WORSE than having them fail.

Assessment:

Resumite.com – I probably will not fully carry through with Resumite.com in the near future.
FancyBlog.com – I want to make this extremely easy to update so it will only take me around 2-3 minutes per day to update. Still in progress.
Traffic Experiment – I’ve always wanted to do this. This project could literally erase the completely unnecessary traffic on I-35 near Downtown Austin, a stretch of road I must travel every single day. Still in progress.

When you can’t have something, you want it more. This fact of human nature can be exploited to save you money.

Personal Example:
Despite having built up a nice amount of cash from several businesses in my early college years, I would subconsciously deprive myself of money, making me “virtually broke” so I didn’t spend too much money.

I did this by just pretending I didn’t have any money in the bank. Unfortunately this method worked a little too well. I would only spend about $60 a month on entertainment, not a lot for a socially active college student.

My Remedy: The spending account.

I created another free account with BankOfAmerica and labeled it my Spending Account. This is the money I designate for spending on anything I want. This money is MEANT to be spent and not saved. It kept me from spending too much money, but also kept me from living like a total cheapass.

If I don’t have enough in the spending account, I don’t buy it.

Thanks to this method, I have a healthy amount of money to spend, and I don’t take it overboard.

-Nev

After this Financial Times article, I am now mentioned in 4 out of the 5 news sources needed to meet one of my medium term goals.