Since the month of February is coming around the corner I can’t help but to notice that every retailer out there is in full swing trying to sway people to by gifts for Valentine’s Day. The thing is too for a lot of the items I see that companies are pushing they don’t exactly seem like romantic things to buy but rather the holiday is just used as a way to get people to buy things.

Example, I was looking at one ad that showed how buying a girl a BlackBerry Storm with a 3 year plan is the perfect gift. While I’m sure anyone would be happy with that, wouldn’t someone feel weird in general getting a $200+ item for Valentine’s Day as well as having someone paying the $40+/month to service it as a way to show their love in a romantic way?

Kind of makes you wonder about the nature of programmed spending, so to speak, where people think they must buy something big because the companies tell you that it is the day to spend. I usually try to do the opposite with days like these when it comes to money. Basically, I try to focus more on seeing what I can do without money first as in my opinion the whole intent is to celebrate something in a thoughtful way. I usually see having to spend a lot of money for occasions like these as an absolute last resort.

I would think days like these would be the perfect time to be creative too. Example, if you have some basic technical skills I’m sure whipping up some kind of well thought out slideshow or video about some precious memories would be more significant than buy an expensive item as a way to show your love.

Interesting thing too is that I notice many times that this day depresses a lot of single people and what many do is rally up and spend money anyways on themselves as a way to not feel left out. Doesn’t that make you more depressed afterwards to have an empty wallet I was thinking? This day should be mainly about relaxing and not busting your wallet if you are single I’d say.

Maybe someone should create a book or video on how to “de-program” yourself from spending simply because it is a holiday.

A person was telling me today that he was shopping around for some items at an electronic store and one thing he didn’t want to do was to pay the full retail price for it. It was a semi pricey item too at about $350. Literally, all he did was go up to the sales person and implied that he wanted a deal as he didn’t want to pay full price for it. Wouldn’t you know it, he then gets offered what the staff members would usually pay for the item which dropped it to about $220.

You might think that sounds ridiculously too simple, but this approach actually works a lot of times as if you just simply ask for some kind of deal many times people will do something. Especially with businesses that are really hurting for sales right now, this increases the chance of getting a good deal. The key thing too I’d say is not to be rude about it as for sure the person will jut sway you off.

It helps a lot if you are a frequent customer of a particular place too. I have often found for myself that being able to relate to people from a business perspective helps too. For example, I remember one time I was with a person who was trying so hard to get a discount on a furniture item as the store messed up on the order.

Initially, the store manager said they could do nothing about it and the person I was with kept making some crazy demands. What happened was that I just talked to the manager about basic retail lingo such as loss leaders and profit margins on the products and sure enough as a result I was able to help the person get a discount.

That’s always good to keep in mind as if you understand a little bit about how that particular business makes profit then you can better understand when they would be willing to budge. But bottom line, don’t be afraid to just ask for the discount during these times.

Recently here there was this lottery jackpot for about $34 million and as you can imagine tons of people flocked to buy a ticket in hopes of winning it. There were a couple of winners and one story in particular was inspiring to me. Essentially, one person named Jorma Hogbacka won the lottery and has publicly said that what he planned to do with some of his winnings was that he was going to give about $30,000 to some Tim Horton employees just for getting his coffee orders right over the years.

I love reading stories like that personally as you have to have a good sense of value/appreciation for the things around your life I’d say to even have the thought of doing things like that. On a side note, apparently he wasn’t too surprised about the winning as he claimed that a psychic told him that he was going to eventually win over two decades ago except he wasn’t given a date. I hope that isn’t a sign that he will be gullible with his money going forward.

But in general, this story reminded me how most people that I know who have ambitious plans to earn a lot financially always seem to have some kind of list of the people they want to help back in this way too when the time comes. I’m not talking about one of those “If I win a million dollars I’ll give you some” goals but rather it’s almost like they want to reach that goal for themselves and the people around them too.

Example, it could be to help out family members, wanting to create something to enhance people’s lives, etc. That kind of goes back to the give more to receive more mentality I suppose.

In a few weeks time I will finally get the opportunity to formally shine the light on a person in regards to his actions when it came to a business agreement and how he has gone through extreme lengths to try and mislead everyone around him. To make it more interesting, he actually had a lot of “accomplices” to help him carry out his deeds. A big reason in spending the time and energy to do this is that it will help others too as I know for myself if someone I was associating with business wise had this shady past that he has been intentionally covering up that harmed others I would personally like to know.

Now this was kind of interesting as one person told me people generally don’t care about what happens between certain groups of people as long as the person didn’t do anything to them directly. I was thinking this is kind of true when it comes to just personal petty things, but if it was business related and you are in some way associating with the person in some kind of business capacity wouldn’t you be interested in it?

For example, let’s say a person now works at a company as he went through the interview process and they loved him. Thing is, he misled everyone about his past history with a former company such as he fabricated his position/role with the business. As well, he actually stole money from them or did something severe that harmed the business and somehow got away initially and was nowhere to be found. Not realizing these details, he gets hired by the new employer.

It turns out that he is like an angel with the new company though and when asked why he left the previous company he says things such as they weren’t treating him well and all that. Now let’s say for some reason the old company finally catches up to him and they take action to recoup the damages and such and of course in doing so that would expose the person’s past. So thinking about this as the third party person, in this case the new employer, would you want to find out all the details about the person’s past or would you feel that since he hasn’t done anything wrong with you currently that this is simply between him and the other business?

I would personally be kind of surprised in situations like these if one simply turns a blind eye to it. If you think about, even from a business perspective that shows that there is a huge risk that there could be a repeat in some form happening to them sooner or later. Who’s to say the person isn’t just playing the same act with you too?

As a result, I usually always like to talk to a person’s past associations directly just to get a true feel on what they are really like. In my opinion, the way they treated others in the past may not be my business directly, but it’s only wise to know what you are dealing with I’d say. Especially if there is some kind of monetary transaction involved, I’ll be the first one who would want to know as much as possible about the person’s past dealings to help prevent any unfortunate surprises.

Here in Canada today there was a big announcement about the country’s financial situation as well as the government’s economic plan to get things going in the economy. Without going through all the details, essentially the government is planning to go into an $87 billion debt buy spending that money on various things such as giving tax credits. So the key question is will people actually spend the money or will they simply save it?

Now there were some interesting details in the plan such as business owners who will get credit to purchase one new computer system for the year. Overall, I am more inclined to just save the funds if I do end up getting money through these initiatives. I kind of categorize these as trickle funds where it doesn’t really change your overall situation and so it doesn’t make sense for you to go out of your way to use it up.

I think of it like a line that gives you fresh water. If my lifestyle revolved around how much water I get every year from this, getting an extra drip of rain each day isn’t enough to change me to the point where I could say use the water to make a swimming pool now as oppose to using it as drinking/cooking water. I would need say another water line before considering that.

I personally don’t see how this stimulus plans can help the average person overall as even I am inclined to say that the majority of people who would spend them are ones that aren’t in a financial predicament. Like with personal financial management too, the key thing is changing the way we do things I’d say as oppose to just catering to people’s immediate wants.

Thinking for myself, if I was in a rut I would think that an opportunity and direction would do a lot more than getting a small amount of cash injection. Example, tell me who I can talk to help me get off my feet, the different types of paths I could take to adapt to the situation, etc. It’s more effective to focus on things like that if I was looking for outside assistants.

As usual though, you should always try to find your own ways to generate more revenue if you need it rather than relying on others to give you it. If you do intend to spend too, try to find ways to use it to generate more funds as oppose to just using it for recreational purposes.