I was reading a debate today of how some people were saying that the cost of living was too expensive and that the average salary of a regular working family simply doesn’t make ends meat. As usual people kind of broke it down into categories such as how much it costs for food, transportation and enlisting one’s child in school. One topic that I personally found kind of interesting was that a personal daycare was on the list as a necessity. The reason being was that in these specific scenarios both parents worked full time and therefore they have to use a daycare.

This got me thinking where if we as individuals should be planning this out instead of forcing ourselves to be in that situation. For example, before we decide to bring a child into the world I am sure many people consider the financial implications and if they can’t afford it then they simply say they need to hold off. I know the most stereotypical example in this case for a couple is that they plan it where one person would stay at home and the other would be the one that is going to work each day. That is still an option right?

At the same time, nowadays with so many ways to telecommute or to create a side business I know many people opt to have one person go out and work at the nine to five while the other is at home with the child and is also doing a small home based business on the side. So therefore, they have everything planned out to take care of their kids and the finances. I was reading some numbers too such as people spending from $600 to $3000 a month in daycare fees. Just as a food for thought, if you do pay say $3000 a month and assuming one person’s yearly salary equals that would you be inclined to say it’s better to take care of the child yourself? As expected, the conversation started to turn into a personal values debate instead.

I always find topics like this interesting when it comes to finance as in some ways it feels like since we were only taught and showed one one to do something that it must be the only option. However, like for this I’m sure if we sat down and really thought about it there are probably a lot of different solutions that are available.

Kind of interesting today as there was a discussion about secret shoppers and how companies spend a lot of money contracting third parties to help evaluate the business and its employees. At first I asked what company they used and funny enough I was told they didn’t use a company but rather they simply asked friends and family members to drop by when they have time to give them feedback. This wasn’t a mom and pop shop type of operation too as the company itself has divisions all over the world.

In many ways I suppose it can make sense as your friend or family member can technically be like any other customer. Although the biggest issue would probably be the they most likely wouldn’t know all the questions to ask employees to know if they are on top of their game or not. At the same time asking friends or family to do it can probably make people feel weird as if you aer simply getting free labor.

Although it is an option though that many people simply overlook if you are looking to save money from hiring a third party to evaluate your business. I know for like myself if I had a friend’s business that was say in the same mall that I am going anyways I wouldn’t mind dropping by and relaying any feedback that I saw. Sometimes yo just need to ask.

I was watching some episodes of the show Dragon’s Den and one point that seemed to have come up is how a lot of the entrepreneurs are willing to sacrifice almost anything for their business. This ranged from people having to sell their homes in an effort to fund their business to the extreme of people who were willing to sacrifice their marriage in an effort to succeed. Course that brought up topics how people should stop when it comes to scenarios like those.

The interesting thing too I thought is how you probably can find stories of say people selling their most precious items to get funding for a business to then see them be extremely successful. So it definitely isn’t an impossible scenario. But the stories where people were willing to neglect their marriages for example is kind of extreme I thought.

I guess the way I look at it is I would imagine most people start a business to make money and that money is supposed to help build and enrich your lifestyle. Therefore, with that mentality it doesn’t make sense to go to the extreme in terms of sacrifice in most cases if you have a business that is doing nothing but draining your money. At some point it almost sounds like it turns into a gambling addiction of sort. In some cases it is good to the adopt the pay yourself first mentality so that you don’t forget that you have to take care of yourself too.

Today I was watching this ESPN documentary that revolved around how rich athletes became broke. For the most part it revolved around people spending beyond their means where once the income stopped coming in they just collapsed. There was one factor though that is not usually highlighted as much where in this case it was friends and family members that were a large part of draining their funds.

An interesting scenario I saw was how apparently there were family members making the athletes feel guilty if they did not give them tens or thousands of dollars by implying constantly that if it weren’t for them they wouldn’t be where they are at. What a tough situation that must be I thought as while you want to try and help people at the same time you don’t want to be used just for your money. I did find it a little over the top that even parents would pressure their kids into something like this.

I guess as mentioned in the documentary you just at times have to learn to say no. While it is a bad feeling to say no to people, if you think about it in this case people pressuring you to give them money using guilt trips aren’t exactly being supportive. I would be inclined to say it is more like sales pitch.

I found this funny the other day as I was just at the mall with some family members where we were there just to kill some time. It seemed like every store we went to it was suggested to me that I should buy this or that and it wasn’t from the store workers but rather the people I was with. It’s like almost every other thing they saw they were suggesting how it was a great deal or asking if I could use something like that to justify the purchase.

Thank goodness I am one of those in and out shoppers usually as this kind of made me think stereotypically how say female shoppers walk out of the mall each time with hundreds of dollars worth of clothing as I am sure the scenario is similar where they each tell each other how great something is. It seemed like the best answer for all this was to say I saw better deals elsewhere which then made everyone say its better to wait.