I’m sure pretty much everyone has been reading about Facebook’s IPO today. From what I gather it feels like it didn’t live up to the hype compared to say when a company like Google went public. I never had the knowledge to venture into things like this as I would imagine it must be like gambling in many ways not knowing really when to buy or sell your shares. The only time I have literally owned shares in a company was through my employment for a company as it was simply a benefit for working with them.

Funny thing was you get all these fancy reports and all that ironically I never read as my inclination was to always try and find third party feedback about the business to see how it was doing in the eye of the general public as I felt working in there was enough to tell me what is really happening inside versus what someone in a suit wanted me to believe. With this Facebook IPO it seems like most of the talk is that if they want to make their money that is going to mean that they are going to have to annoy their users more in some way such as finding more ways to throw advertisements at people.

Too bad I don’t know anyone personally who has invested in this as it would be fun to see their thinking and research process to see when they are comfortable in keeping stakes in the company and when they would want to bail out.

I was talking to a person who was fairly young and he actually ran his own business. He still lived with his family and all too. Since his business is doing very well and his living expenses aren’t massive he usually has an excess amount of money at the end of the week. Not surprisingly, at times it seems like he doesn’t know what to do with it and so it is either spent on things like dining out or even gambling.

What is funny I thought is that usually for like myself when it comes to spending money I would think “Is it worth it” or “How much return can I get” whereas it seemed like for him in many cases it is more like “If I don’t spend it here I would there anyways” and so he just ends up using his money. I suppose it’s hard to break a habit like that in his scenario as he has an excess amount of money coming in and there is no real need for him to change when you think about it.

I know one person who broke that habit by simply getting a hobby of all things. Strange huh? You would think that you would need to work hard to show them the importance of saving for the the future and all. But really, just doing something that occupied his time more for when it is not business time worked like a charm. No reason why this couldn’t work too for most other people if there are people you are struggling with to try to change their financial habits.

Like every year at tax time a lot of people are expecting some kind of refund and retailers want a piece of that. What was interesting was that I was reading a sales ad for one company and they were saying how you should just save your money but rather invest it. In this case, “investing” it was basically buying some kind of product from them. For example, a fridge, computer, etc.

I couldn’t help but to giggle a bit when I read that as the headline just makes me wonder how many people that would entice to buy something. Almost reminds me of non essential items for kids and the way they get the parents to buy it is that they continually advertise the products as an investment to your child’s future.

For myself, I would always consider circumstances like that as a “sale” whereas investment would revolve around buying an item for things like productivity or specifically to make more money.

I was hearing two sides of a debate today where some people were going to go on a two week vacation since during this time a lot of people do so. Of course, people that work a full time job get vacation pay as well. At the same time, I was hearing how some people mentioned that taking vacations like these actually cost you double and instead they just bank the vacation dollars and invest it.

I remember when I used to work at a full time job my vacation pays just kept accumulating. Basically, I didn’t even treat it as like an entitlement but rather something I ignored. So when time came to bank it it’s almost like you winning a small lottery. My decision was always to save it personally until I could find something decent to invest it with.

I know the purpose of a vacation pay is so that people don’t overwork themselves and the intent is that you take days off. In my opinion, unless you truly have no financial predicaments it only makes sense to use that money to further push yourself ahead I’d say.

I was talking to a person today that had such an interesting and blunt direction in life when it comes to paying for various classes for his daughter. For example, it is not uncommon for a parent to pay for some kind of music lessons for a child with a common one being piano lessons. For him though, he mentioned where after four months since his daughter wasn’t getting any better he said forget about it and told her straight up that she was bad in playing the piano. She then went into different types of instruments and has found success fairly quickly.

The same went in investing in activities such as teaching her various sports too where he mentioned if she does not get good enough within a specific time period then he will just tell her straight up that she is horrible with it and will move on to something else. It’s one of those mentalities where you either got it or you don’t I suppose.

That is kind of anti “being persistent” I’d say where sometimes you just have to stick with it as everyone needs a different amount of time to truly become good at something. How long I would personally stick to things of this nature in terms of expecting results depends on the intention of doing it in the first place.

Life skills in general is a long term investment where it is more about benefiting my everyday life. However, learning a skill to compete with others is a different story as that I would be more inclined to say maybe it is not for you if you can’t compete at a certain level during an X amount of time.

It’s almost like a business too where you have to think how much of your time you are willing to invest and stick at it till you decide “This is not right for me” if you still aren’t making immediate financial progress.