When it comes to managing money there are usually two types of people that I meet when it comes ensuring one’s financial security in life. You have one group of people who focus heavily on saving a lot of money with the intent that they won’t have to work anymore afterwards and the other that concentrates in creating streams of passive or residual income to achieve a similar goal.

While I personally do both, I personally try to focus more in finding ways to create those streams of income. It made more sense to me when I thought about it at an earlier age. For example if it was a situation such as my food supply was currently fine and dandy, I could just focus on somehow storing it for an emergency incase the supply stream runs out temporarily. On the other hand, wouldn’t it make more sense to spend energy exploring different sources or ways to grow food as well?

It’s the same thing when it comes to money in my mind. While obviously you do want to save still, spending your time and energy figuring out different ways to generate streams of revenue that will fit your particular lifestyle just seems like the logical thing to do. Speaking for myself, I personally wouldn’t rest unless I have developed a passive or residual income stream that is strong enough to get me through some kind of drought without funds in a savings account being a factor.

While obviously nothing is 100% bullet proof, I think focusing more on creating multiple income streams rather than relying on just saved money per say is a wiser way to really be prepared for emergencies or times of need.

This was kind of funny as just the other day a person asked me how much I paid for a specific desk and I said about $40. She then mentioned that she was able to get it for $30 and was so happy to be able to finally beat me in terms of being able to save more money for an item. It’s all in good fun though.

While I usually have friendly competitions with people in other things as a way for us to try and bring out the best in each other, I just thought how it was kind of strange to use that same train of thought when it comes to saving money. At the same time, I guess that’s one way you can make yourself more self conscience when it comes to your money.

Maybe I’ll have a “Let’s see how much you can buy for $10” type of competition with someone in the future and see what comes out of that. Although, it better not turn out into something like a person buying a gazillion one cent gummy bears…….

I happened to pass by a gas station today that had a sign advertising a credit card with a 5% cashback option. While there was probably a catch since I whizzed by the advertisement sign, I was with another person who made a comment on how he felt that credit card rewards with points such as airmiles are a waste in comparison.

I personally prefer cashback options, although from a value point of view in most cases the reward options you receive seems to be almost inline with each other. The only main difference I see is that with one option you are forced to get something that you don’t necessarily want.

One thing is for sure though, I hate having to pay for those premium reward options and would usually avoid them if they require any kind of additional fee.

I was watching this clip about a 15 year old singer from the Philippines named Charice Pempengco who appeared on the Oprah show recently. This is one of those very few moments in life where I was just dumbfounded as the person’s vocal skills seemed to be so beyond the norm for a person at that age.

Apparently she started getting known on a more international scale as a result of one of her performances being posted on YouTube. I was able to find a recording of the segment she recently appeared in as well which you can see here.

Aside from the performance, the thing that this story made me think of is online marketing where in this case YouTube was the vehicle. I always like to tell people, especially the old school thinkers, on how the Internet is like the great equalizer that gives a lot of smaller people a chance to play on the same field as a very well established figure or business.

This was sure a great example of that I thought where if you have something good there are so many things you can do nowadays to equally put the spotlight on yourself without putting a hole in your wallet. That’s some incredible talent though huh?

In recent news here it appears that Walmart has finally found a location to open up a store in the Vancouver area. The company tried to open up a store here before with a lot of people objecting to it as they felt it would harm the local community such as an increase of air pollution and the possibility of small businesses being forced to close.

It was announced recently that they are going to be taking over the building of an existing Costco wholesale business at Grandview Hwy as the company is planning to relocate to a different location. The Walmart store is set to open sometime near 2009 and is suppose to create hundreds of new jobs. People can’t really argue about the location here either now as it is a busy commercial area as it is.

What is really interesting to me is that just a few blocks away from this location is a supermarket called The Real Canadian Superstore that has been there for ages and is where I normally shop a lot. I’m one of those people who have read the stories on how Walmarts in the US have been able to put companies like these out of business as everyone wants everything cheaper. As a result, it almost becomes as if Walmart is the economy afterwards as people work and purchase goods from it with no one else to really go to.

I’m personally one of the more open minded people in this situation though. I can definitely see how this could have a negative impact as while I’m sure it will enable a lot of people to buy goods for cheaper, in the long run a company with that much control can pretty much dictate things such as wage standards or making it very difficult for local suppliers to compete with others who use cheaper labor.

At the same time, I can’t deny that this has got to be one of the most prolific examples of capitalism as they pretty much earned their success from ground up. If you think about it, they are only really giving what the majority of people want as in the end the consumers control who comes out at the top.

Honestly though, they do have Walmart stores in other cities here within the province and price wise it seems to be on par with a lot of other businesses. Should be interesting to see how this develops.