About a week ago I was talking to a person about money and how just talking about the future can trigger a lot in your mind to the point where you will continually make good financial decisions. The example that was used was let’s pretend you were offered two choices in getting a free gift certificate for a store. You were told that if you take the offer right now you would get $20 and if you wait about two weeks you would get $50. So the question was which one would you take?

To me I obviously said the $50 as it sounded like it made more sense in the long-run. He was then saying of course people like myself would choose that. However, he was expressing how for this test if you actively engage people in conversations about what they plan to do in say the next week or two beforehand they will more than likely choose the $50 based simply on the notion that they are thinking about something in regards to their future. For people who usually don’t surround themselves in conversations such as those apparently they are more likely to simply go for the immediate gratification route.

That’s interesting I thought. If you think about it too this doesn’t mean you have to get people to talk about money or finance specifically. Instead, it could be a simple topic such as what are they planning to do for fun next week or talking about say where they plan to visit for their next vacation. The more I think about it the more this makes sense too I suppose for myself as I am usually always thinking about the future regardless of what topic category it may be.

Not a bad concept to take away I say especially if you are trying to find ways to teach like say a child on how to save money or how sometimes waiting a little can result in getting better rewards in the future.

Today I was reading about venture capitalism in general and the different approaches that some people take when it comes to funding a business or organization. The one interesting point I thought was that the ones who were most successful were the people that focused more in investing into companies they felt had a good idea and leadership as oppose to people who were so caught up in simply the numbers.

I suppose in many ways that does make sense right? It must be a lot harder too though to invest in things mostly based on if you think it will be good later as the risk is extremely high as opposed to someone that already has a good revenue flow. Then again, I guess that explains why those people are more successful in many ways financially as it’s kind of like the saying of more risk more reward. At the same time, if you are basing it on a person’s track record or leadership background then one could argue the risk should be less.

In many ways I suppose it is similar to shows like Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank where every investor seems to have a different philosophy whee it comes to investing. I would say when it comes to getting funding on the Internet with places like Kickstarter it feels like it is more a people’s platform where it seems like it’s all about the idea and the people behind it. I feel that is how it should be and we need more things like that.

While nowadays I am used to hearing people going to crowd funding as a source to get funding for their business or projects the notion of people using it for their personal lives is a bit more foreighn to me. While watching the news today a story came up about a couple who was trying to have a baby through In-Vitro Fertilization where it is obviously expensive an so they went to a site called gofundme to try and raise money for it. You can see their posting here: http://www.gofundme.com/icanhazfamily

It made me think too where if they can get this successful why wouldn’t more people try to do it for things like a student trying to get money for school or asking people to help pay for a wedding? The first reaction I heard was that no one wants to look like a beggar and so this usually turns people off of the idea. At the same time I would say this is one of those you don’t know if you don’t try situation. I wouldn’t be surprised too where if someone asked for help to buy them a bag of potato chips that it’s not too far fetched that there is someone out there who would be willing to do it. At the end of the day it’s just another way to potentially get money.

I am always surprised when I hear this as today people were telling me how their friends make so much money to the point that they have no idea what to do with it and so they simply blow it in a casino. The funny thing is that the topic came up because people were trying to come up with a fair rate to bill them for a service and the response was that the figure was too cheap since these are people that easily blow thousands of dollars on trivial things each day.

I have always wondered myself where if you are truly bored and have no idea what to spend your money on isn’t it more fun and potentially rewarding to just say randomly go to a site like Kickstarter and start investing on some projects to see how they go? Unless you are trying to train yourself to be like the next poker champion I think this would be a good way too to keep yourself in the loop in terms of the things that people are trying nowadays as it may even give yourself some ideas on things to to do and create.

Kind of a crazy story I was reading today as there was a person who literally sold all of his large investments in life such as his home to pursue a business idea. The thing was he has apparently been chasing this idea for over a decade and has generated very little sales. However, he refuses to give up as he doesn’t believe in giving up on something.

It’s kind of tricky in some ways as you can argue that you have to have that never giving up mentality to succeed. But at what point do you say it is not worth sacrificing everything else that you have accomplished if it is continuously producing bad results? That’s usually where you hear the contracting and conflicting advices I say as in one end a person would tell you to stick at it and another would say jump out right away if it seems like it is costing you too much. When you think about it too I’m sure everyone has read positive and negative stories in these scenarios.

I guess the only real middle ground is that if you are trying some kind of new idea or venture that requires a lot of your personal money is to only invest what you know you can lose without it impacting yourself too much. If you don’t think you have enough then that means you have to find a way to earn more first. It’s just a little amazing when people who feel that they have never failed at anything in life could all of a sudden just risk all of their money thinking nothing can ever go wrong.

I would think too before divulging into ideas that are way out of your financial range that trying to get investors can be good when it comes to the money plus if anything it’s kind of free feedback ahead of time to see how receptive your idea is with others before investing too much into it yourself.