Children, Internet and Money

This morning I got an e-mail from my 10 year old nephew PeterJacob. Every now and again he sends me some internet project that he and his friends are experimenting with. It always fascinates me to see the things that they come up with and their courage to experiment and “put it out there”.

About a year ago, I got a mail from him letting me know about his best friend’s blog (I remind you that they are ten years old). His best friend loves baseball and set up a blog with trivia and current events and commentary. It was nice to see the kid’s initiative, but what even impressed me more was his use of Google Adwords advertising campaigns which is based on what the industry calls Pay Per Click (PPC). Google pays out to advertisers for each click that is generated from their website – an excellent way to generate passive income. I take off my hat the this little boy for his entrepreneurial spirit  (Lesson number one in this post).

The e-mail that I received today blew me away!

The subject line was: My Charity  - with a subject line like that I of course opened the mail immediately and this is what was written:

Hi Everyone!
My best friend Brandon has a sister named Arielle who recently created
a charity to cure pediatric cancer. Her charity is called, A Dollar
Campaign. Visit to her website at: adollarcampaign.org. Arielle's
charity that she confounded with her best friend only asks for one
dollar from everyone. If everyone donated one dollar- imagine!
Arielle's mission is to find the cure to pediatric cancer one dollar at
a time. Join her effort! If you can, please sign up for her free
newsletter and leave a comment!

I surfed around in Arielle’s site for a while. I read about Arielle and her partner. I looked at all the tabs and I was sorry that there was no electronic payment option, because I would have given my Dollar happily.

Neomi and I really, really, believe that “money” is not just about the money that you bring home or the amount written on your balance sheet. Money is a resource that you can and should use to enrich your life and the lives of others around you. (Lesson number two ).

Arielle found a great way to enrich her life and the lives of others around her.
How can you use your money to enrich your life?

Mindy

If you don’t take care of small problems, they turn into BIG PROBLEMS!

For all sorts of reasons, people put off taking care of problems: There’s no time to deal with the problem right away; it is not fun to take care of problems so we would rather ignore them (maybe if I ignore it, some miracle will happen and it will go away); I don’t have enough money to fix the problem right now… I could go on and on with more excuses.

Well, I want to let you know that if you do not take care of small problems while they are small (and it really doesn’t matter what exactly the problem is) IT WILL TURN INTO A BIG PROBLEM.

I want to share with you a small problem that I had, that for many reasons (some mentioned above) I didn’t take care of and it, and of course it turned into a BIG PROBLEM:

It started a couple of months ago (maybe even a year). I had a leak in my kitchen faucet. It was manageable. A little water here and there, but I could clean it up easily. Once a friend was over and even managed to tighten something which stopped the leak for some time, but as I should have expected, the leak returned after a while and I kept on looking for how to tighten it again, with no success. The leak made a bigger mess this time, but I was able to manage it by putting a small bucket under the sink - which I didn’t always remember to empty before it overflowed.

While all this was happening under the kitchen sink, the toilet in my master bedroom broke – the water continuously flowed into it. It didn’t really make a lot of noise and "I wasn’t really sure if there really was a problem", so I ignored it (and I am an avid conservationist). That is, I ignored it until the city sent me a letter saying that my water usage is unusually high.

Do you think that the universe was trying to tell me something?

For this I was also had a temporary solution - I turned off the faucet each time the toilet filled. This worked well until the faucet broke. The bathroom was out of order and we were reverted to the kids’ bathroom (much easier than calling a professional and dealing with the problem).

Now back to the kitchen sink.

Last week I saw water on the floor near the kitchen sink, thinking that I forgot to empty the bucket (which now I was emptying into the master bathroom toilet), I opened the cabinet door and saw that the bucket was relatively empty!!!!! I tested the flow of the water and found to my dismay that there was a leak in a different place.

THE UNIVERSE WAS SCREAMING and I was still looking for a Band-Aid. I tighten something and it stopped leaking.

Then, this past Friday, I was preparing Shabbat dinner and the kitchen sink started to leak in a place where no Band-Aid would work and I was forced to call my plumber (who I actually like and gives me great service).

After working for 3 hours on ALL the plumbing issues I had, Tzuriel explained what he did and how much it cost and also explained what he would have needed to do and how much it would have cost it I had taken care of the minor issues when they began – a savings of about 2 hours and 400 NIS! Not only did I lose time and energy (and piece of mind) taking care of all the leaks, I also lost money! (The shoe repairman goes barefoot).

 This story reminds me of how I used to take care of my overdraft and financial issues. Always cleaning up the mess and getting stressed out trying to find a Band-Aid that would last.

People! Fix any and all problems when they are small! Your plumbing problems, your marriage problems and your financial problems!!! Little problems generally have easy (and inexpensive) solutions. It is better to invest your time in finding the professional who will help you solve the problem is the best way possible instead of wasting your time grasping for Band-Aids.

What can you fix today?

Mindy

My Mother is a Financial Coach

I have to share this with you. It is one of those things that as a parent, you can sit back is your chair with a sigh and a big smile on your face and say "Wow, they actually hear me and it makes a difference."

That was exactly the feeling that I had!

This is the story:

Both of my kids were going on their yearly school overnight at the same time. And hand in hand with overnights are snacks. I highly recommend not fighting this one. We generally don't have "popular" snacks at home. I try as much as possible to prepare regular meals and keep healthy snacks in the cupboard, so I sent the kids to the local grocer to buy some.

As much as I say "don't fight the popular snacks" in this instance, I also don't think that you (or the kids) should exaggerate. I only had a 100 shekel bill in my wallet so I gave it to them and told them that I wanted them to spend only 50 Shekels – 25 Shekels each. I didn't want them to be too pressured about the cost so I also told them that they don't have to be exact, its OK if the go over the 50 shekel limit a little but to try to stay as close as possible to the goal.

The kids came back from the grocer about a half hour later with a big bag and big smiles on their faces :-) :-). Wanting to share in their pleasure, I asked to see their treasure. (Ha, ha, it rhythms)

They poured out all the goodies onto the coach and started to explain: "We both got one of these", "I got this and he got that – they are about the same price", "We bought a bag of mixed chocolate and a box of Oreo Cookies so we can share", "We checked all the prices – some things were really expensive so we decided to get other things instead", and so the explanation went one.

Then my daughter saw the receipt lying on the coach and picked it up. With a huge smile on her face she said, "Mommy! All this cost us only 59 Shekels! We knew exactly how to shop and get the most out of our money. After all, my mother is a Financial Coach!"

All I could do at that point was eat them up – the kids that it !!!!!!! The best snacks that I ever had :-)