Jun

30

Money, Michael, Madoff, Madness and More

Filed Under Money, Finance and Other Serious Stuff | Comments Off

The news these past few days has been so crazy in the realm of money that I have to put in my two cents (leaving me still with more than some of our famous, or infamous, subjects). There are many lessons to be learned.

David Horsey

David Horsey

Several people I know or know of were caught in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi web —  elderly people, some with family and friends enough to survive, some in a not as fortunate a place.  From the scandal, I am reminded that greed is an ugly, unhealthy thing.  What can you buy with a few billion that you can’t buy for a few million?  I am always astounded at how greed takes hold of people who should know better.  I saw it in myself after the great real estate debacle of the early 2000s, and I’m not proud, but I can guarantee it won’t happen again, to me, anyway. I see it as well, of course, in the Madoffs, but unfortunately, also in some of their victims, who, seeing a good thing, sunk ALL of their savings in it.

Now, I realize that few people knew what was really going on, but repeated above average earnings in a crazy market like today’s could be a red flag that, even if nothing was wrong, this probably couldn’t last — not good news for the people who pulled out of the fund a few years ago, who now have to repay some of their earnings to the fund.  But that’s not the lesson. The lesson as I see it is that the old, tried and true advice is usually something to take into consideration.  Never put all your eggs in one basket, not all your money in one investment.  And never do business with friends.  I learned the hard way.

Moving along to Michael, who lived a somewhat short but really amazing life, and left mayhem in his wake when he departed.  BAD Michael JacksonI am often frustrated by trying to find discount theatre and concert tickets, one of the very few areas where I am sometimes forced to pay full price.  Now I know why — the promoters have very little leeway when they have to pay (or pre-pay) performers’ salaries.  Michael died almost a half-million dollars in debt.  But really, he doesn’t care now.    The big loser in this is the concert promoter, who now has to refund millions of dollars in purchased concert tickets for the not-to-be tour, and now, with questions about his cause of death, they may not be able to collect on their insurance claim.  Lesson: Made me think that if it’s okay for him, it’s okay for me too.  Between all the people suffering after real estate financing, and Michael leaving such huge debt,  perhaps the world won’t be so focused on credit scores, which IMHO are kind of stupid anyway, as they do not take into account such things as income and assets, and only look at debt.

Ed McMahonLet’s talk about debt, baby (thanks to Salt n Pepa).  Ed McM had a mountain of it.  What happened to him?  He had a ton of money, and he lost it, without the help of a Bernie M.  I don’t really know the circumstances of his fall from financial grace, but the lesson here, as I see it, is that money comes and money goes, but when it comes, it needs to be nurtured so it hangs around for a while.

This week we also lost Billy MaysBilly Mays.  Billy was the pitchman for many products that were good but not necessary, but Billy’s yelling and cajoling made him a very rich man.  I had the pleasure of meeting Billy once, at an entrepreneurs’ conference, and he was cool (except that the promised gift of a one-sweep broom never did arrive).  He spoke about finding a niche where you can have fun and make money, and his life and work illustrated this to the max. His lesson:  follow your dreams, and the money will appear.

The final lesson has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with life.Farrah Farrah fought the good fight; from Angel to Poster Girl to serious actress to cancer warrior, she was the personification of beauty and strength, except for that Letterman appearance, as she dealt with the blows that life brought to her.  She inspired a lot of women with her inner and outer beauty, her courage, and of course her hair.  She was a role model for many women.  She chronicled her battle with cancer, and the the end, she maintained her grace and dignity, and left a generous donation to charities for abused women.  Farrah’s lesson for me is to live life fully, and when you go, leave the world a better place than when you got here.

To these people, who lived to entertain the rest of us, peace.  May your legacies continue to make the world a better place.


Jun

29

Smile Training

Filed Under Health and Well-Being | Comments Off

white teeth

I just received an email tip that, although unverified, is too good not to share — how to save hundreds of dollars on whitening your teeth.

Cathy, from Santa Cruz, CA, wanted those glow-in-the-dark teeth that everyone seems to have these days, but wasn’t willing to spend the money to have it done professionally — so she did a little research, and reports having fantastic results. What she said:

“By looking around online, I found a few special offers and coupon codes to try products by only paying a few dollars for shipping. That allowed me to get two different products for free.   My plan was to use one first and then switch to the other, which is what I did. The results were good with the first product alone, but what I hadn’t expected was that when I followed it with the second, I noticed improvements in parts of my teeth that the other product hadn’t affected, or had only slightly improved. It appeared that each of the separate products focus on different parts of the problem, or maybe that the second one gave the whitening a boost that finished the job! By using them both in that order, I was able to get even better results, and because they both had trials AND coupon codes for them, I was able to do the whole thing by just paying a few dollars in shipping charges.”

The codes below were valid as of 6/6.  Let me know if they work — if not, we’ll find some others.

Product 1 –

DazzleWhite: Use Promo Code whiteteeth

Product 2 –

DenTech: Use Promo Code smile

Please, if you try this, report on your results. Also, buyers be warned — We have not tried this one ourselves, and we have had some feedback from readers that have done “free trials” in the past and say that they’re hard to cancel.  If you do this, be on top of it, and don’t ever let anyone steal your money — you work too hard to earn and save it.

For some more good info on home-made cures and beauty products, click here.