Now that I am finally done with school, my life has had a lot of BIG changes. Here are just a few things that I’ve experienced in the past month.

1. Graduating college. Sweet!
2. Paying for my own health insurance
3. Paying for my own car insurance
4.Purchased a car (with a loan, not with cash. I’m not that rich yet. Little joke.)
5.Invested some money. I purchased shares of Apple (Yeah, I’m jumping on the bandwagon) and Diageo.
6.And the big one. Got a new job.

The new job thing is huge. I decided to turn down some pretty good entry-level positions to try out the whole entrepreneur thing first. My father hooked me up with a local business owner to start up a few programs that I developed to increase her profitability. If the whole thing goes the way I think it will, my shares in the company will be pretty good. I finally get to have an influence (that I can actually see) on a daily basis. Every single job that I’ve held throughout my college career was pretty much pointless. I always had to listen to management even though they were completely wrong (at least that’s what most of my college textbooks said).This is the first job that I get to call the shots.I’m going to update everyone on my progress as the weeks go on.

Because I’m working for a small business (20 employees), I have to pay for my own private health insurance. I decided to go with Kaiser Permanente for low rates and the medical center is right by my house. It’s costing me $67 a month, which is a pretty reasonable rate for a man my age. It covers all the good stuff, but has a higher deductible.

Another huge financial event in my life was the purchase of my new/used car. My mother was in a small accident that ended up ruining her car for good (she wasn’t hurt). My parents and I decided that she would take my car and that I would purchase a new one. After so many hours of shopping online and visiting car dealers, I decided to buy a 2004 Honda Accord EX (IT HAS NAVIAGATION. SWEET!!) It set me back a good amount of money, but it will only cost me $300 bucks a month for five years. Hopefully, I will be able to pay it off way before the actually deadline so I won’t have to pay interest on a depreciating item.

A lot of new events will be unfolding in the next few months. When I get some time to sit back and write, I will be writing on a consistent basis. My life seems much more level now and I’ll be able to take the time and write about personal finance and politics again. I have to thank my co-writer Dave for helping me out with some wonderful political and social ranting. Thanks again for bearing with me during the past two months.

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(Congratulations…now you’re
down to only one boss!
Happy Retirement!)

Are you worried about retirement? Probably not… I mean you’re young and you don’t have to worry about it for such a long time. I don’t think so. The “Are you worried about retirement” question is so vague. A better question would like “When do you want to retire, and how much money do you want when you retire at that specific age?” Personally, I want the ability to retire around the age of 40 and then dedicate my life to public service. What are your retirement goals?

Everyone has their own ideas about retirement. Do you want to live lavishly or comfortably? The real question is - how do you plan to fund your retirement? There are so many options out there such as: 401(k), IRA’s, real estate, investing in business, owning your own business, ect. I plan to use pretty much all of the above.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, there are 5 keys to resting easy concerning retirement. Beside the key points are some articles that may interest you concerning that precise topic

• 1. Plan for the financial transition. Couldn’t find any, which means I will be writing on this very soon. If you find an article on this subject please leave it in the comments!

• 2. Pay down debt before you retire. Jeremie (me!) from eFIPO.com article on Why save when you’re Broke.

• 3. Evaluate your assets. 2million article on Asset Allocation

• 4. Health insurance is a must. Jeremy from Generation X Finance article on Why do I Need Insurance? - Part 2

• 5. Take care of your health. JLP from AllFinancialMatters article on Health Care.

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Let me tell you about my day. It was a beautiful morning in Georgia. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too cold. There was sunshine gleaming through the trees in my front lawn, and the birds were singing a good tune. It was just perfect. But then…. I was getting ready to go to work and I noticed that my car had a flat tire!

(I inverted the colors so you can see that I did not have to pay for anything!)

Most people hate having flat tires, but I hate them even more. Want to know why? Well maybe it’s the fact that I have had over 12 flat tires in less than one year and eight months. Or maybe it’s the fact that I have had to get ten patches, and two tire replacement. It might also be the fact that I have had to spend over $400.00 on stupid patches! But luck was on my side. The general manager at Big 10 Tires, Bill, gave me a free patch because I am their best “patch-up” customer.

One of the tires that I replaced was purchased at Big 10. I bought hazard insurance because you know luck will strike again in the future (But then again. My luck shined and decided it wouldn’t be on the tire I have insurance on!). Get hazard insurance on all your tires, because the road is your enemy and it wants to send pieces of sharp metal right into your tire. I wish I could get it on all my tires, but that will have to wait till I get new ones on all my wheels, which according to my calculations should be in three months.

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