Considering Dividend Income as the Fed Lowers Rates

If you are in retirement, or even semi-retirement, having a dividend rich portfolio is quite a necessary thing. The dividends you receive serve as a significant source of replacement income, filling the gap left by regular W-2 wages.

It's a delicate balancing act. I mean, just because you leave the workforce doesn't mean you no longer want to still grow your portfolio while covering your living expenses—who doesn't always want more money if you can have it? Avoiding having to dive into the principal is a big consideration as well. Especially in the beginning years. And of course, even when inflation is low, it's still a factor to keep in mind. That $100 you have today will not be worth the same $100 tomorrow because inflation will eat away at some of the value.

You need to have a reliable source of income to pay your bills while continuing to build your wealth as much as possible, and that means making things so that the dividend income you are receiving exceeds what you are using to fill the gaps.

That means sensibly managing dividend yields to ensure you can get the best bang for your invested dollars. But, in all fairness, that can be a bit tricky with so many variables to consider.

When we had the massive decades high inflation, courtesy of poor economic policy by the Biden administration, it came with at least one silver lining, and that was higher yields on basic savings from banks as the Fed raised rates in an attempt to slow down the economy.

In other words, being able to get a 5% yield on "safe" money was an advantage, and offered a bigger incentive to be cash heavy during that time. The thing is that when you are relying more heavily on dividend income as a major source of your income in retirement and semi-retirement, you want to keep your money as close as possible. You don't want an enormous amount of risk because the bulk of your growth opportunities have come to pass.

Chasing massive yields from monthly payers, such as can be found with many ETFs, can be very risky. Seeing yields surpassing 10% is not uncommon but share valuations can fluctuate wildly. So, finding more sure investments become crucial to maintain as much of your portfolio balances as possible.

Ideally, anything between 4%-8% is considered a good yield as an average to shoot for.

Now that interest rates are falling, it becomes less desirable to hold money in a high yield savings account and it becomes more important to start looking back to the markets to increase your dividend income.

The rate on my Ally savings account, for example, has fallen to 3.8%, and will likely drop further as the Fed continues to lower the benchmark rate. A $100,000 balance which offered $5,000 a year will now only offer $3,800 a year. I don't want to simply lose the $1,200 difference. But rather, I want to adjust my cash position to bring it back around.

One ETF I like is BXMX which offers a 7% yield and happens to be rather stable. While a 7% yield is always more attractive than a 5% yield, because the cash position was "safe," it offered a desirable compromise at the time. Now it offers a better opportunity to earn higher dividend income even if my principal will not have the same benefits of safety that my savings account did.

The key takeaway here is something I have always said that no matter whether you are still working or retired, your money should never be left in a set it and forget it mode. You have to be constantly aware of what's happening with your money, and what's in the best interest of maximizing its value, both in terms of growth and income.

The balancing act part comes in as you try to mitigate risk and offer all of the things you wish to get from it. Growth, income and relative safety.

Even finding something that offers 4% is better than making spending adjustments from the 1.2% you no longer will realize and is a decision that recoups at least $200 worth of potential lost income. It's still important to keep enough cash handy to deal with emergencies and keeping that money safe and accessible is essential. The rest of it should be maximized to offer the best return and income possible.

Currently I am only moving the dividends from the high yield savings to higher yielding stocks and ETFs. But as interest rates continue to fall, more of that cash position will be moved to higher ground.

Balancing growth and income while managing inflation and avoiding principal depletion can be a daunting task, but it's well worth being one to take on. Sensibly managing dividend yields and staying aware of market conditions, even when you no longer have a more reliable source of income, maximizes the value of your wealth and ensures more financial stability, even when things become more complicated or difficult.

It's more important to consider levels of safety in retirement and semi-retirement. Of course. But being too safe can cost you more money than a carefully considered level of added risk would.

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© 2024 Jim Bauer

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The Biden Inflation Catalyst
Certainly, there are myriad factors as to what causes inflation to occur. Do presidents have a role? Most certainly they do, although they do not necessarily directly impact inflation, fiscal and other policies absolutely do. So, how can we tell Biden is the man behind the inflation we have now?

We're All Angry Paupers in this New Economy

by Leonard Knath, staff writer

Hey folks, gather around. It's time for another episode of, "What in the hell is wrong with the world today?" Let's talk about the cost of food. Yeah, you heard me. Food. The stuff we need to survive. You'd think it would be a basic human right. But no. Instead, it's become a luxury item.

Have you seen the prices lately? Well, of course you have. How can you miss them? And what about those damn eggs? What's going on with that? Since when did having a dozen eggs in your shopping cart get raised eyebrows from people passing you in the aisles?

"Enjoy your scrambled dinner, Rockefeller."

Of course, you can't blame the stores or even who makes all this stuff. It's inflation that's done it for anyone who wasn't aware. It's an invisible hand reaching into our pockets pulling out whatever spare change we have left.

Kind of makes me think of a bad magician. You know the one. He says, "Give me a dollar and I'll make it disappear," only to grab it, spin around, and run.

As a matter of fact, I think this magician has long, dark hair and a rather grating cackle.

Speaking of politicians, they just stand with their thumbs up their asses telling us it's all under control. Yeah, sure it is. Just like we were once told that the Titanic was "unsinkable."

I am pretty sure they want me to be dirt poor. Those stinking Democrats. They want me poorer than poor. How else can they entice me with their free stuff so I will vote for them? I still won't, but you get the idea. Beyond that, any time I get a bill there's another fee, another service charge. 

The greatest inventor nowadays invents new ways to take my money. "Oh, you want to breathe air? That'll be $5.99 plus tax."

Leonard Knath, pronounced like math, is a seeker of truth and an adamant denier of the status quo. He makes his home in Stratford, New Jersey where he lives with his wife Dee and their two cats, Lawson and Saul.

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© 2024 Leonard Knath

Self-Checkouts Are Being Rethought

When self-checkout first came around as an idea, it was of course a response to calls for higher wages, made more through arbitration than through bottom lines that supported increases. Most recently, in just the past couple of years, the number of self-checkout lanes has surged.

But already we are beginning to see a pull back from them by the companies who were so eager to put them into use. It seems to be falling into a category of "be careful what you wish for." The idea was, of course, to reduce the need for human cashiers who of course require a W-2 wage and save businesses money.

But has it actually saved money? 

It was announced recently that our local Schnuck's grocery store would begin limiting self-checkout to 10 items or less. And more businesses are following suit, including the world's largest retailer, Walmart. The reason is something in business known as "shrink." In other words, these retailers are losing money due to customer errors and intentional theft.

The thing is, physical cashiers serve more than one function, really. Of course, the primary one is to scan your items and collect your payment. But the other is to act as a failsafe between you and the door to ensure all the items in your cart were paid for and accurately charged.

Receipt checkers may stop you at the door to check your cart. But what are they looking for? The bigger ticket items like beer, soda and TVs. If you've slipped a Snickers bar in your bag without paying for it, it may not be the highest dollar amount item, but those Snickers bars begin to add up to big bucks. And the receipt checkers aren't going to know if you have scanned your avocados as a tomato.

I don't even think all of these intentional thefts signal a dishonest consumer at large in so much as it simply gives consumers another reason to feel like they are owed something. "If I have to check myself out and bag my own stuff, shouldn't I be compensated in some way for doing that?"

It's enough that most consumers already feel like they are being ripped off. Now they have to serve themselves as well?

Limiting items being self-checked to 10 or less gives retail establishments more ability to actually check a receipt and make sure everything is accounted for. But ultimately it also means more people will be going back through the regular manned lanes to check out.

I think ultimately, I understand why businesses want to do these things. Install self-checkouts and ordering kiosks. At the same time, at the heart of any retail business is the interaction between store representatives and the public. Customer service is important. And you can't get that if there is little or no interaction.

It makes the experience feel cold and mechanical. But it also gives consumers less to consider on the other end of the transaction, like how what they do affects the livelihood of a real person. Are they stealing from Nancy on aisle 5 or the guy stocking the shelves? Or are they stealing from a phantom entity behind a curtain pulling levers?

It would not surprise me to see expanding self-checkout lanes to begin retracting more and more as the experiment falls flat. In order to deal with the rising demand for higher wages, businesses are going to simply have to go back to the drawing board to figure out the best way to handle those costs.

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Thinking In Terms of a Paycheck Is Part of the Problem

Especially when it comes to living at a time many of us have not experienced in our lifetimes, a period of high inflation where every dollar we earn has less buying power and must be carefully thought out before we spend any of it, there is still something I think that holds us back when it comes to financially getting ahead.

A paycheck.

That may seem like a silly thing to say considering a paycheck is of course, a means to an end. We can't really get anywhere without one. But it is how we think about our paychecks which happens to be the very thing that holds us back.

When it comes to income, it's the one thing most people consider as the source to having more money. If they could just earn a little more, ask the boss for a pay raise or find a better paying job, or find secondary or tertiary incomes like second jobs or side gigs, they'd fare better financially.

But the art of having money is not in simply earning it. The art is building wealth from what we earn. In other words, the more you keep and save the better off you are. 

Building wealth is not really so much about earning more as it is about making every dollar we have go farther, and letting our dollars endure the labors rather than us to produce more income. That means taking on some level of risk such as investing.

There is a difference between earning money and creating money. And once the mindset changes to understand that it makes a world of difference. It changes one's entire perspective about money and wealth building and creation.

When you work for a paycheck what you are really doing is simply chasing your tail. You earn some money, you spend it, and then you have to go out and earn some more. But you never really get anywhere. The cycle just repeats over and over again.

Richard Kiyosaki from Rich Dad, Poor Dad called it akin to being on a treadmill, being constantly in motion, but ending up exactly where you started.

The key is to find ways to make what you earn more valuable over time. What's a dollar worth if you spend it? Zero. But if you invest it a dollar could be worth $1.08. And with compounding, over a longer period of time that dollar could be worth $5.

This doesn't mean don't seek a higher paying job and earn more if you can. It doesn't mean don't ask for that pay raise. It doesn't even mean stop working. It simply means, don't think of that extra earned income as something to spend more with. Think of it in terms of something to build wealth from.

If you can get a pay raise through a better job or from your current one, pretend like you never got it and put the money to work for you.

A paycheck can be both a crutch and an opportunity. It just depends on how you think about it. It can either provide a level of comfort knowing if you just keep working, the paychecks will continue to come. Or it can offer you an incentive to put more of your money to work so that your paychecks become less and less necessary over time as an absolute means to pay for things.

As I have always said, paychecks are essentially worthless if all they do is maintain the status quo.

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Forget Side Gigs: The Path to Financial Freedom Is Investing

Most of the time when people talk about side gigs, what they are talking about is creating more money to spend. Sure, in their mind they may be thinking this will get them ahead. But spending can never do that, and spending—at least at first—should not be the goal.

You need to invest your money if you ever want to create wealth and actually get ahead financially.

Even carrying a simple savings account is typically not enough since most regular savings accounts don't offer much in the way of interest. You should have savings, though. It is always important to have money that is easily and readily available if you have an emergency expense that needs to be paid like a furnace going out or a major car repair.

Typically, one should have at least six months' worth of salary in a savings account for emergency expenses which, by the way, also serves as a cushion if you lose your job.

One savings account I like that gives me a fair amount of access to my cash is from Ally. Because of the Fed interest rate hikes, they are now paying 4% interest, although it has fluctuated mostly between 0.50% and 2.5% over the years I have had the account.

Even when it paid only 0.50%, that was far above the typical interest offered on a regular bank savings account.

But even when it comes to investing, you can't just blindly enter the markets. That's a sure way to lose your hard earned, and even harder saved money. Learning about how to manage your money and invest it may just be one of the most important things in life you will learn.

Why?

Because while money can never buy happiness, what it can buy is freedom. And that's a big deal. Freedom is what gets you ahead and allows you to make decisions you want to, that are in your best interests rather than be forced to make decisions because you have little choice in the process.

Investing also accomplishes something else. It reduces your need to incur debt, which saves you tons of money in the long run. It allows you to better deal with things like inflation, that we are having to deal with now. It gives you room to breathe. It also gives you more time to do the things you want to do, rather than have to constantly chase more money—using your time to do it.

Those side gigs.

We hear all about them. Working in a retail store part time or delivering food through Doordash, walking dogs, renting out unused rooms in your house or your entire house on sites like VRBO. 

These things will create extra new money. But unless you are going to invest what you earn, ultimately these things are worthless, and all they will serve to do is eat up valuable time you could be enjoying doing other more fun things.

Things that can ultimately be paid for via the proceeds from your investments. Which brings me to just one more thing that investing offers. More spending money.

Granted, it's all calculated, right? You can't just spend willy-nilly. But certainly, if your investments are producing additional income, at least some of that additional income can be used to spend on the things you want. To treat yourself. To splurge a bit every once in a while.

Take a recent example from my own situation. I bought a camper to enjoy some time with my wife on weekends and when we can take extended weekends. I didn't pay for the camper. My investments paid for it. And my investments also pay for the trips we take.

My investments pay for dinners out or having dinner delivered when we want to do it. Having saved on the things we need we now have the ability to afford the things we want. We can do more. We have more free time. And it is likely we will retire rather early. We are in our 50's and seriously considering it.

We wouldn't be able to that had we not invested. We certainly couldn't do that if we had to spend our time doing side gigs. Especially if those side gigs were only to pay for things. To spend the money earned from them.

Overall, when you think of making more money, the aim—initially—should never be to spend more money. It should be to save more money. To reap the rewards down the line rather than upfront. 

Many people claim saving requires sacrificing living. It's actually the opposite of that. When you don't save, you sacrifice your life to constantly chasing new money the hard way to replace old money you spent.

Money makes money. And the more money you have, the less work you have to do get more of it.

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Money is What You Make of It, Not How Much You Make

Because I write a lot about money and opine a lot about money, I tend to get all of the usual types of responses that are almost entirely, in my opinion, generic, and all easily debunked or argued against. The rich are all greedy and just want to hoard the money. Workers are exploited with low wages. You can't get ahead in the world if you don't make a lot of money. You can't live on the kinds of wages most companies provide.

My favorite one is, I can't afford to save, therefore how can I invest?

In part I say easily debunked or argued against because, like most people, I started at the bottom. Not the top. Yet despite that it has not stopped me from being financially secure, getting ahead, or being able to take advantage of the myriad wealth building opportunities everyone has no matter where they exist financially.

Yes. There are limits. But what the real limit is, is how little people recognize what the real opportunities are, how accessible they are to everyone, and what opportunities are afforded us by what the rich have created to have a shot at joining their ranks on some level.

I am not going to say it is easy. By no means. But nothing that is worth doing in life ever is. It's hard because it is supposed to be. It is hard because the challenge is what drives us forward despite what limitations we have or what hurdles we have to overcome.

I took my first job working for Dominoes Pizza at 14 years old putting circulars on doorknobs advertising pizzas to potentially hungry customers. They paid me $2.85 an hour. That was in 1987. In 1992 I went into the United States Navy and, according to my Social Security statement, by the time I got out in 1996 I was making $13,418 a year.

I started investing shortly before I left the navy. And granted, my expenses were low because I lived on the ship during the time and most of my food was paid for. I started investing with roughly a few hundred dollars. 

But I had a mindset. Live on 80% of your income and sock away the 20% you don't need. When I left the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in April of 1996 I had a total savings stash worth only around $3k. That was from money saved as well as money earned from investments.

Even 10 years later, according to my Social Security statement, I was only earning $36,951. But during that time I had real expenses. I bought my first investment property when I was 26 in 1999. Most of the downpayment and my ability to do that was based on proceeds, dividends and gains earned on saved money in the stock market.

I continued to save and invest at rates of 20% or greater, acted frugally, and continued to invest and learn about various strategies in the stock market. 

Never once did I ever think of the rich people I worked for as greedy. Never once did I allow myself to feel exploited. Never once did I complain about low wages, and certainly I was mostly always paid low wages.

I worked for big companies like Quad Graphics, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, and Nestlé. I even did a short stint as a pest control guy for a small company called Batzner Pest Management in New Berlin, Wisconsin.

My best year was at Coca-Cola, working in mid-level management and earned $60k. After Coca-Cola I took pay cuts to take on new challenges, and my last full year at Batzner I only made about $36k. The key here is that no matter how much money I made or didn't make, I never deviated from the plan. I never made an excuse to stop saving or to make changes to my investment goals and strategies.

The one thing that remained static was my thinking that it never matters how much you make, but rather it matters what you do with it.

More importantly, throughout my earning career one thing I never changed was my lifestyle. If I made $60k in my best year at Coca-Cola or $36k in my best year at Batzner Pest Management, I was living the same way, saving the same way, and investing the same way.

I even took time off frequently between jobs. In fact, between Nestlé and Batzner, I took nearly two years off.

Because of my investments, my bottom line changed little. My money was making money for me, and while it may not have been a period where I was necessarily getting ahead at the same rate as before the hiatus, I was still not going backwards.

And because despite the lack of new income coming in from a job, my money was still earning an income, and my lifestyle did not change much.

I will admit I did have to make some adjustments. But not unlike adjustments I had to make after I left Coca-Cola and took major pay cuts to do that. I was always viewing money not as a crutch or a limitation, but rather as an opportunity. 

If I look at my entire lifetime to date W-2 wages, from 1989 to 2022, according to my Social Security statement, my lifetime earnings to date are roughly $975k. Breaking that down that's roughly an average annual earnings of $29,546 a year.

I won't tell you what's in the "bank" now. But I can tell you it is an impressive amount of money considering what I ever had to work with. And that amount that's there now could never have been achieved if I had accepted for myself, the generic responses I get now when I talk about money or opine about it.

I lived on paltry wages and saved and invested them. I held a long-standing belief that opportunity is there for anyone who wants to take the time to learn about them, understand them, and exploit them as opposed to ever telling myself that I was the one being exploited.

In other words, rather than make excuses, I took action. I never once was able to allow myself to be convinced I was the underdog and doomed to poverty by the system or by circumstances not necessarily in my control.

I instead made my own circumstances and controlled my own fate and dictated my own financial future. I took hard the stance, no one can stop me from achieving what I want, because I have seen others before me do it. I always saw the possibilities. 

In no way was my desire to ever become a victim of circumstance or blame others for financial issues I may have had along the way. My financial existence was mine in the making, and mine to determine. If I took a job that paid a wage I didn't like, it was never once thought to be the responsibility of my employer to kick more money into my paycheck. It was my responsibility to kick more money into my paycheck by making decisions to increase my wages or wealth through finding a better job or making decisions about money I was already making to increase its value or worth.

When I write about or opine about money, I am doing so from a point of view of someone who never made much money but was able to build wealth anyway. It's part of the reason I am so strongly opinionated about it. It's why I get a little hot under the collar when someone says to me, "Yeah, you just say that because you have money."

You're just another rich guy lecturing the poor.

But I wasn't always that guy. I was the other guy. The guy who averaged under $30k a year who got somewhere despite it. Do you want to call $30k a year a decent wage? Hardly. And again, I lost ground several of those years, taking time off between jobs. Living off investments and making no income. And despite low wages and year-long hiatuses, still made my way through it. Still walked away with more money than I left off with.

The bottom line is that if you want to be a victim, that's a choice. If you want to allow yourself to be limited financially by circumstance, that's your choice. If you don't want to participate in the opportunities everyone has to get ahead, that's also your choice.

But it's not the rich guy's fault. It's not the cheap boss' fault. It's not societies fault. It's not the government's fault. It's not wage disparity's fault. It's not rich business owners or shareholder's fault.

It's yours.

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A Couple of Ways to Deal with This Inflation

While it is true that the April 2023 inflation numbers dipped to 4.9%—still relatively high—it's much better than when inflation hit its peak of 9.1% back in June of 2022. So, while the rate hikes that the Fed began a little over a year ago seem to be helping curb consumer costs a bit, we're not out of the woods yet and things still cost more.

Mortgages, for example, jumped from 2.6% to around 6.3% for an average 30-year fixed rate loan, and credit card interest has jumped to a record average of around 21%.

There is also the question of whether or not we may still see a recession. Something we have not seen yet, but most economists would suggest that between inflation and rising interest rates, it may be sure to come despite any effort by anyone to try to avoid it. And while a recession is not good, and it's not the end of the world, it would not come without some additional pain as layoffs would likely occur, further stressing American's bottom lines.

On the flip side of this, as rates have risen, so have offered interest rates on certain bank accounts. Savers are getting the biggest bang for their bucks, benefiting the most from banks that offer so-called high yield savings accounts. So, looking into some of them, especially online, may be worth looking into if you have some money tucked away somewhere not getting the best rates. It would be worth the time to shop around as well since not all high interest banks are good.

Ally Bank for example, offers a 3.75% current rate, and CD offerings are northward of 4.5%. That's quite a bit more than the national average of 0.39% even if 3.75% still doesn't come near to beating inflation, a key factor when determining how to get the best bang for your buck.

Capital One also offers 3.75%. Barclays is giving 4%. And there are several others. You can go online and do a quick search to find the best rates and do some bank comparisons.

Beyond that, you really have to know your prices when you shop, and you have to be quite a bit more vigilant about shopping around, even visiting multiple stores to get the best deals on most things—especially food and common household items.

Make shopping lists, maintain a good inventory, and stock up on good deals as often as possible. This will also help to determine where you shop based on who has the best price so you don't have to visit multiple stores all at once. When inflation is tugging at your purse strings, every penny counts more than ever.

Of course, a money related post from me would never be complete without mentioning investing. Dividends are a great way to create new money—it is literally income. And besides, you should be invested anyway. If you are not familiar with investing, a very valuable book to read, and well worth the time and money, would be The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. Creating money from money you already earned is a great way to at least hedge against rising costs.

One thing taking a significant bite out of people's pockets is also the cost of gas and diesel. Why not try to earn some cash back on some of that, and the Upside app lets you do just that. Plus, they also offer cash back on certain grocery stores and restaurants. I have used this app for some time and I have to tell you the savings do add up—and again, every penny counts.

On top of that, doing everything you can to reduce debt at a time like this is paramount. As I mentioned earlier, credit card rates are tipping the scales at 21%. Not only should you pay some of that debt off to save pennies, but you should also be less inclined to use credit to offset expenses caused by inflation. Borrowing when rates are higher, and inflation is through the roof is a good way to compound the problem. So, simply don't do it.

While it may be a more difficult thing to accomplish, provided your company is not laying people off or otherwise enduring other struggles financially, this may be a good time to ask your boss for a raise. You'll want to do some analysis so you can present a reasonable proposal, but the fact is that businesses already understand the impact of inflation on their bottom lines and won't hesitate to raise prices to help get through it. You are as much well within your right to ask for more as they are.

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Most People Want More Money But Don't Actually Want More Money

The title, I will admit, seems a bit strange, doesn't it? I mean, one either wants more money or they don't. Doesn't everyone naturally want more money? It would seem like a no-brainer to say, most people want more money.

The thing is, that's just what most people say. The reality is quite a different thing. The reality is that most people don't have more money, and there is actually a simple answer to why they don't.

They don't actually do anything to go after it.

Part of the problem lies in how people think about money. To a lot of people, it's magic. Or it's luck. Or they think that only rich people can actually be rich and get richer because they are already rich.

The fact is that most of the rich people in this world did not start off that way. Many started off quite poor and became rich. And the reason that happened for them is that they did want more money and actually wanted more money.

Perhaps the title is making a bit more sense?

Let's go back to what I said about how people think about money. Beyond magic and luck, people think of money in terms of mainly income. Money that is created through a job, or a second or third job, through side gigs, using certain apps and taking surveys. Perhaps they write online and that's a source of income. Or they decide to sell crafts or something else on eBay or some other similar selling site.

All good things, mind you. And there is nothing wrong with doing any of these things to create more income and have more money. But really, the new money is rarely tied to getting ahead. It's tied to simply continuing to get by.

In other words, the objective for getting more income is to spend all of it. And here's another reality. You cannot spend your way to riches.

When I say more money, I am not just talking about earning more. I am talking about all the ways that are out there to actually grow what you have already made. And that's the part most people overlook. Thus, they don't actually want the real money that's available to them.

Because, that part is not a secret. It's not magic or luck. It's simply knowing where the money is and taking the time to learn how to get it.

It's not the easy way. Not necessarily. I mean, to me it is. But I have been doing it a long time and know my way around. That learning process didn't happen overnight. Nor did growing my stash. And that is also the reason a lot of people avoid it.

The stock market. 

People think of it as a private organization. An exclusive club. A place for the rich to play high stakes games, sometimes at the expense of the little guy with pockets less full.

That can't be farther from the truth. But of course, I will repeat what I said before. You just have to know what you are doing. The question is, if the stock market is one of the best sources of money and one of the best opportunities to actually become rich, why don't more people do it?

Because again, it's no secret. In fact, when you look at the Forbe's Richest list published every year, a good many of the people on that list made their money through investments. Yeah, a lot of them own businesses. Sure. Of course. But owning a business and making a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean running it or even having started it.

Many of the people on the Forbe's list are simply investors.

The stock market can be complicated. I want to be clear about that. I mean, it is not always complicated. Take a guy like Warren Buffet. He takes the easiest approach there is to investing. He simply buys low—and in his case rarely ever sells. He rides on the waves of successful companies and collects dividends as they continue to grow and operate.

That is where and how he had made most of his money.

A great book to read if you want to know how Warren does it is called The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. To some it is considered to be the Bible of Basic Investing. If you wanted to call it something else, you could call it the nuts and bolts of making money by buying solid businesses.

I am going to tell you that reading Graham's book might be one the most valuable reads you may ever read, aside from maybe the Bible Itself if you happen to be religiously inclined. It is the key that opens the door to the vault of knowledge secured behind it.

It dispels the magic and the luck theories.

Going back to the income thing, think about this for a second. It goes right along with that how people think about money thing. College. For some it's a big deal. If you want to have a good income you need to have a degree that gets you a good job.

But even that, having a good job, does it serve one to really get ahead? The answer is mostly no. No good job really gets anyone ahead. Investing the money they earn does. And again, the people who actually want more money know this. It's why they have money.

Besides the fact that many non-college degree jobs pay more than degreed jobs do. Plumbers and electricians make a lot of money. So do welders and factory workers—depending on the job of course. A guy working in a brewery might make over $80,000 a year easily while someone working in a cereal factory might be closer to about $40,000-$50,000 a year.

Back in the day I worked for a Coca-Cola bottling plant on the factory floor and made over $60,000 a year. And that was more than 20 years ago.

But that's not my point. Just an illustration. I have always worked and continue to work to this day even though I don't really have to. But the second part of that, even if I don't really have to, is because I never spent all of what I made. 

I invested.

Moreover, I took the time to learn how to invest. I learned about the stock market. I even went beyond what Warren Buffet does and learned other aspects of investing such as writing covered call options contracts and that sort of thing.

I actually wanted more money and continue to want more money. To actually want it, achieving it through doing things that actually make it. By not wasting my time seeking out high incomes or time-consuming side gigs exclusively just to chase the next payday and do nothing more than get by.

There is one other thing I did. Rather than lambaste and scold the rich, or even be envious of them, I studied them. I wanted to know what they did to get there. I wanted to know how they did it. 

The bottom line is that simply wanting more money doesn't more money make. Only actions can do that. Only an active interest and participation in things that make money and create wealth will do it. Either you can sit back beneath the table of the rich and wait for crumbs to land on your plate. Or you can sit at the table with them and have your own plate.

The choice is entirely yours. But it is up to you. The opportunity is not lacking. You true desire to get at it is.

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What Job Loyalty Means To Me

The short answer? Only a fool will allow himself to be beholden to anyone for his livelihood. I think of a job like I think of a business. It will make decisions that are imperative to keep the business afloat, and growing, regardless of how that affects the people in the business. That's just smart business and really nothing personal.

Don't get me wrong. I will continue to stay with any company that is doing all of the things that are right for maintaining my own business. That is, having the ability to pay my bills, having the ability to enjoy upward mobility, and having enough free reign to pursue my personal interests as it applies to money and ultimately my livelihood, present and future.

My boss is a jerk is not necessarily a reason to leave a company any more than my boss is a really nice guy is a reason to stay with a company.

For me it boils down to one question. Does the company have the meat to allow me the ability to get where I want? If the answer is no, then just like a business will decide that having 500 employees is not beneficial to the bottom line and reduces their workforce to 400 at the expense of 100 people now out of a job, deciding to leave a company behind is simply the right business decision regardless of any other factors, if it is determined that the company that you work for is stifling your ability to meet your own  personal business' needs.

When YOUR business affects the health and stability of MY business, it's not about loyalty. It's about doing what's right for the health of MY business.

No business I have ever heard of longs to have its doors shuttered just because it wants to be loyal to someone or something.

I am not loyal to a company. I am only loyal to my business. And as it should be, just as much as the company I work for is not loyal to me, but to its business, I should be loyal to my business.

You cannot and should not ever consider yourself a simple employee. And moreover, you should never allow yourself to become a simple employee. In  other words, you must make it your primary goal to afford yourself the ability to become an individual business within the framework of any company you work for, and thereby afford yourself the ability to make decisions about how you proceed based on what you can do as opposed to what you must do.

Why do people stay in jobs that don't have the meat? The simplest answer is because they have put themselves into a position to need their employer to support at least the continuity of their own personal business and equate that to the idea that they are being loyal to an employer that is taking care of their needs. At that point it really isn't about loyalty. It's about simple survival. But some people will mistake that as being taken care of by their employer to maintain the status quo, and thereby will take whatever comes to them.

Most of the time, people are just getting by. Your own personal business is being sustained, but it's on a treadmill, your business is running in place, and at any moment the belt can break and you will be sent reeling onto your hindquarters with egg on your face.

In this sense, one is more like a slave to their job and to their company than an individual person able to decide for himself or herself what the best next step is in expanding their own personal business. That is a hugely dangerous and foolish position to be in.

I work for no one except for myself. Plain and simple. In reality? I have no boss other than myself so long as I understand the needs of my own personal business and the ability of the company I work for to have the meat to allow me to do what I need to in order to make my business a winner.

The moment that I decide that is not the case, I walk. Regardless of the inconvenience to the company I work for. Regardless of the consequence of the people I worked with. Regardless of the impact of my decision on the livelihood of others. It is a business decision that is made with regard to the needs of my business, and nothing else.

Nobody else, and no other business matters except my own. And that is exactly the way it SHOULD be.

Loyalty to a job means to me that a person is in need of their job. Not in control of their own future, their own destiny, and not in control of the future expansion and growth of their own personal business.

The old saying that a fool and his money will soon be parted sort of applies here. If you rely on being loyal, you are likely leaving opportunity, and potentially money as well, on the table. No successful or smart business ever worries about who gets hurt in the process, and certainly they don't worry about competitors who get taken out either. They do what is right for their business, and so should you consider your own personal business above all else.

However harsh it may seem, loyalty to anyone but yourself is simply a good way to ensure that others around you will thrive while all you get to do is survive. In essence, you will forever be beholden to someone else for your livelihood.

It may seem selfish. But at the end of the day any smart business is in business to become a powerhouse and grow and make money. If you think of yourself as a business, then it just makes sense to pursue your needs above the needs of all others, including the company you work for.

A boss it a title. A business is an entity. And where I come from? A business trumps a boss. The only time a boss trumps a business is when he is allowed to do so. I choose to be a personal business and trump my boss. And a boss only has power when his business trumps the business of the other personal businesses around him. If the businesses around him are strong and powerful, concession is the right order of business. And then the reality becomes that what is actually taking place is partnerships.

To my mind, loyalty is a fool's game, pure and simple.

Lower Gas Prices Will Spike The Economy

When it comes to oil, as a general rule, there is one big factor that I consider. Oil is deeply embedded in the entire United States economy. For that reason, when oil prices, and especially prices at the pump, reach new low levels, I think the overall impact on the economy is potentially great.

This becomes more pronounced when we think about how much of a negative impact high gas prices have had on the average American family in the past five or so years. Pumping up to get to point B drains spendable cash from the pockets of consumers, and this has an effect on the entire economy. Especially where discretionary spending is concerned. But let's not forget that all of the products we buy must get to point B as well, and much of that transport of goods happens using gas.

It is uncertain how long gas prices, or the price of oil in general, will remain lower. But at least in the short term, the impact of low gas prices in the economy could help to lift up many companies that would be direct beneficiaries of the decline in oil prices.

Those would be the places where discretionary money would most likely be spent.

Companies to look at to invest in the decline in oil prices? Retail outlets, especially those that are a step above stores like Walmart, The Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar General. Starbucks is definitely one place that could see more customers willing to spend some of their newfound extra cash on a cup of premium coffee. Restaurants and entertainment venues will fare well as well.

Of course, all of this fresh cash entering the overall economy will have another effect as well. That is, it will help to bolster demand, and that of course can lead to more jobs. Even if oil prices ramp up again, ideally more Americans will be back to work, and the economy will better be able to sustain itself going forward. This recent decline in oil prices, if you ask me, is at the right time, and just what the doctor ordered.

Ass Kissers At Bubblews?

They are everywhere! We see them at work especially. Ass kissers. Those guys who have their noses so far up the boss' hindquarters you can tell by their smell what the boss had for lunch, and even dinner the previous day.

And at Bubblews, there are a few of those there as well. Of course there are. Like I said before. They are everywhere. Like flies congregating on a fresh kill. Ubiquitous.

Of course, Bubblews is having problems paying its members. And while I cannot beat the dead horse anymore than I already have many times in the past about the fact that like the site and like the concept, I also cannot simply discount the fact that fun aside, the site says it will pay its members.

And yet it does not.

Well, not always. They mostly pay their members. But the real problem is the why factor. That's the part that no one can get to the bottom of. And certainly the CEO Arvin Dixit isn't saying anything about it. He's as hush as a mute.

One member, who I am beginning to think is one of those Bubblews ass kissers I am worried about, Mike Pugh, says, "The Bubblews Team is working both night and day on these issues and due to the fact that so many countless redeem rewards were lost in the process of the cut over from the old Bubblews to the new Bubblews."

My question is where on Earth did he get that answer from? The Bubblews team? The CEO? The president of the company?

No one from the Bubblews team has said a word about payments, or how hard they are working at getting them processed and paid. No one.

Oh sure, the Learning Center on the site says payments may take up to 30 days, and even goes on to say that they plan on taking on more payment processors in the future. But let's be real here. The number of posts both within the Bubblews website, and outside the site are stacking up big time. People are not happy and they are saying so.

And Bubblews remains silent.

Mike Pugh goes on to tell us, "Many of us have tried contacting the Bubblews help email thingy. That didn't work, but I believe it shall begin to work soon for the folks who haven't violated the rules. It's just a matter of time before they catch up to your emails, and please for assistance. Hang in there folks!"

Sure. That sounds like a fine way to sort things out, now doesn't it? Your boat capsizes. A little birdy comes and assures you a rescue boat is coming. Don't try to swim your way to safety. Don't try to hold onto that capsized boat until rescue comes. Just lie there, floating and hoping.

You will not drown I promise you. The rescue boat is being launched any minute now. JUST HANG ON!

Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Pugh. Tread water till your heart is content or stopped for that matter. But I'm not going to take my chances.

So, this is not a life or death situation. Certainly it is not. But it is a situation, and one that has no explanation. So I voice about it. And so do others. Because it is something to be concerned about and is something to be explored, and questioned.

I am not an ass kisser. I feel no fear voicing my opinion. And voicing my opinion does not make a Bubblews hater out of me.

In fact I would go as far as to say that I am a Bubblews lover. I state my concerns because I am concerned. For the other members who clack away at the keys there. For the site that gives us a place to clack away at the keys.

The site says it will pay. When it does not it makes the whole point and the very site itself moot. And that means that the site will have difficulty treading its own water. I don't want Bubblews to drown. I want to be that rescue boat to help save them.

I will continue to beat the dead horse for as long as I can because I do care what happens. As for ass kissers? Well, we all know where they ultimately wind up when the company goes kaput!