The Millionaire Next Door (A brief book review)

I mostly read non-fiction these days. Usually I stick to travelogues and historical accounts that generally are about the North Atlantic and, well, History. This year I made a point of starting to read business books.

"The Millionaire Next Door" isn't a book on business. It provides outstanding insight into how one should manage his or her personal finances through frugal spending. The authors aren't talking about investing in stocks. That is not the intention of the book. The key here is the word frugal. We live in a "high consumption" society and the temptation to spend on unnecessary items is way too high.

Using ample evidence (real life cases and consulting with millionaires), the authors drive home the point that a high income earner will not necessarily become a millionaire...and that guy driving the gleaming new Ferrari may not have enough to retire comfortably. Some of what the authors say may seem repetitive but their message works. They talk about everything from spoiled rich kids who have never managed to escape the influence of their parents to the tactics employed by those wealthy people when shopping for used cars.

My own spending habits (since I've finished reading the book) 3 months ago have changed considerably...for the better, I am sure. Because of its easy to understand format (the authors use plain English and no math), this book would make an interesting enough read for teenagers about to finish high school.

The Millionaire Next Door (Paperback) by Thomas J. Stanley (Author), William D. Danko (Author).

Pardon my cynicism again but...

There are regulations as to what one can wear to work in government offices in India. Perfectly normal. What are workers but wayward bees without regulations?

It is also equally normal for some Hindu men to wear a tilak or a red dot on their foreheads. Apparently one man has come under fire (well, almost) for wearing a tilak to his office as that is against regulations in that agency. He is protesting in terms of religious right and the fact that he has been wearing the til for the past 30 years.

The full article is here.

What caught my attention was the following statement he made:

"It has religious sentiment for me and if somebody goes on harassing me on this pretext I'll have no option but to commit suicide."

I say harass the motherf*cker! India does not need people with that attitude...especially since I am not there anymore.

Having said that, I have to say that the regulation to disallow people from wearing the til is a stupid one. It is not practical to enforce in a country of a billion people (most of whom stick to tradition with the resilience of a mouse's asshair) and would be a waste of management's time.

Pardon my cynicism but...

People go missing all the time. So why are this couple suddenly receiving the attention of the "world's media"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6983007.stm

"...the couple were granted a brief audience with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome..."

Bah!

Anyone know how many people have been killed in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood in the last six months? Check out the stats here.

We were a-singin'

So I took last week off from the office. Hung out mostly around Revere beach, my roofdeck and the public pool across from my apartment building in the North End. But I did go to Singing beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea a couple of times including once on Thursday with David. Although the weather was beautiful both times, the water was cold!





Notable events included a seagull pinching a small bag of chips from under my nose while David was away in the water.

Hip! Hip! Hoo...its a what?!

My previous post was entitled "Animals!". Well this one is about a real animal...a hippopotamus exactly. Its not just any ordinary hippo but a pet! Isn't that cho chweet?! I found the video moving especially in the way the big booby opens its mouth to prompt the human for another helping of a snack. No, I am not going to cry but it makes the mastodon look so...vulnerable. This is yet another stark reminder of humans ability to change (or disturb) an ecosystem. At 6000 lbs, a hippo is still a dangerous animal. But still, so moving!

Five exercises I like - Part 5

This is the last of 5 parts.

Over the years I have tried many movements and exercises. Some felt like a waste of time. Others helped me add on pounds and absolute strength (thereby making me look muscular than my 165 lbs) while at the same time keeping me light on my feet (like I was when I was a 100 lb kid). Here are five movements that I seem to have settled on now. They get done on a regular basis although not in each and every training session.

Breakfast

Ok, so this isn't exactly an exercise but it contributes to my overall feeling of well-being and infuses me with plenty of energy at the beginning of the day.


This is a typical breakfast for me.

I eat a traditional western breakfast 5 to 6 days in a week. A couple of days I have breakfast outside in a restaurant near my office. The rest of the days I wake up famished enough to prepare breakfast at home. I haven't eaten cereal in close to 3 years now. I have never experimented with other "foods" like pop tarts. And I don't remember the last time I had bagels or donuts.

I make bacon first. I like my bacon soft (Irish style). Then I don't drain the pork fat from the pan. Instead I use it to scramble a couple of eggs. Add to that wheat toast with fruit spread (sometimes butter). Then wash that all down with black coffee and a bit of either cranberry or prune juice (the latter being high in fiber). If I am going to be doing a lot of physical activity that day (like on weekends), I might add an egg white or two on top of the whole eggs and go with tuna (or anchovies) and red beans. I will skip the bacon. I will also take my coffee with heavy cream. With such a solid breakfast, I typically won't eat again until late afternoon.

Some days I have a second breakfast at work comprising of instant oatmeal and a couple of bananas late in the morning. This way I can sometimes put off lunch until mid-afternoon.

Since I go to bed early on most days, I have found dinner to be quite unnecessary on most days...unless I plan on hitting the gym in the evening. When I come back from training, I can't sleep right away anyway. So I would make myself a small steak or pork tenderloin, watch TV or read a bit until sleep beckons.

(Acceptable substitute) There is no substitute for a good breakfast.

"Gage"ing progress

I feel bad about all these people losing their homes because they couldn't pay their mortgage. On second thoughts...why should I feel bad? It was their decision to buy a house when they didn't have enough money in the bank to buy the whole thing in one stroke. In the movie Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood gives good advice to Hilary Swank when he advises her to pay cash to buy her first piece of real estate...a house.

For the past couple of years, I had been reviewing real estate in a lot of places: Newton, the North End, Charlestown, etc. But now I am going to wait a bit and buy real estate after I make enough money to pay cash for the whole thing. With only a single source of income (that is, a monthly salary), it could probably take a couple of decades. But you know how the saying goes: Necessity is the mother of invention.