Using the Rule of 5 When Buying Things

Getting ahead financially, or even managing your budget can be a difficult task. But it is never impossible if you at least think about it. Sometimes one of the ways to do that is by having unique ways to force yourself to not only think about what you spend but force yourself to think about ways to save.

All too often, part of the problem is a lack of forward thinking, or the, "I want it now," mentality. What can especially get us into trouble is relying too heavily on credit, and not thinking about what the real cost of things are when they are financed.

We all know about the value of compound interest on assets. But compound interest applied to liabilities can devastate us.

For a lot of people who carry large amounts of debt, they tend to think of their debts as manageable so long as they can make the payments. The reality is that if you cannot afford to pay the debts off tomorrow immediately, you cannot afford to carry the debt.

If debt is used responsibly, it can be a useful tool with some additional rules applied. For example, if the cost of the interest on any loan is less than the amount of interest you are earning on cash in savings or investments, the debt is "affordable." If the cost of the interest on the debt is greater than the amount of interest you are earning on any cash or investments, it is better to use the cash instead of incurring the debt.

The rule, however, creates a caveat. But it is one that works to your advantage.

The Rule of 5 is a very simple concept, and one that can be applied, and even probably should be applied to nearly every purchase you make, with some exceptions—such as real estate, for example.

The idea is to accumulate money before you spend it rather than to simply earn it and then spend it as it comes in. You may see a pair of shoes you want, for example and think, "I have $50 right now to buy them, and so therefore I can afford them."

The reality is that you cannot actually afford them. Even if you have the cash right now in your hands to buy them.

Applying the Rule of 5 means that before you can rightfully claim to be able to afford that pair of shoes, you need to have at least $250 of available cash on hand that is expendable—in other words, not tied to any other commitments.

It makes you stop and think about your money before you hand over your hard-earned cash. It's posing a very simple question. "Can I afford to buy 5 pairs of these shoes?" If the answer is no, you wait until you can before you actually make the purchase.

Not only does it avoid spending money today, but it also forces you to save additional money and to think about your reward for having the money differently. Instead of having nothing left after your purchase, you have the joy of knowing that you have $200 left. On top of that, you can now apply that to other future things you may want to buy.

Although the Rule of 5 can seem impractical when it comes to certain purchases, I think it is essential. It gives us a peak into what we are actually doing to set ourselves back financially. Something we rarely pay attention to, which ultimately gets us into all sorts of financial problems.

"Can I afford this car?" you might ask. "Can I buy 5 of them?" is the better question. Even if you decide to take on a loan, it doesn't mean you can afford it. 

"But if I want a reliable car, and I have to pay at least $30,000 for one that is reliable, who has $150,000 lying around to justify it?"

The answer is, "Most people don't have that kind of money lying around because they have never considered the Rule of 5 in regard to anything else. Especially when it comes to the small things."

We are all well aware of the age-old adage that good things come to those who wait. It is rarely applied to reality when it comes to most people. Even if you applied the Rule of 5 on a smaller scale, the rule could still work.

For example, say you can afford a car payment that is $600 a month. You aren't going to be able to afford $3,000 a month. But you can afford $120 a month. So, when you decide to buy a car, you find one that will only cost you one-fifth of the payment you can make.

How about considering applying this rule in your favor? You effectively make the $600 payment after you buy the car and have a payment of $120, but instead of paying $600 each month to a loan originator, you pay $480 to yourself and put it into savings or investments.

If the loan term is for 5-years, at the end of that term you'd have effectively saved $28,800 which can be applied to whatever future assessment of a vehicle you can afford would be. It is either used as a hefty down payment on something, or it is reapplied to the rule of 5 and divided into a 5th over the course of another 60 months giving you an additional $96 of monthly spending power, meaning now you can afford a payment of $216 per month when added to the $120 per month you could reasonably afford to pay before based on the Rule of 5.

Of course, applying this rule does not mean that what you are ultimately trying to do is to be able to necessarily buy more things. It simply means that if something happens tomorrow that negates your ability to afford things in the longer term, you are able to at least cover everything in the short term.

If you suddenly lose your job, you can still pay for what you have, and if you have applied the rule appropriately to everything you buy over time, you probably have something to fall back on as well to cover the necessary day to day expenses until you can find a replacement job.

The idea is to simply think about your money in terms of its intrinsic value and apply that value in order to get the most out of your money over the long haul.

There is nothing more comforting than knowing that if your income fell to zero tomorrow, you could still afford to pay off every single debt you have five times before you've actually run out of money. More importantly, the Rule of 5 forces you to think about your money more carefully before you pull out your wallet.

| "If you are digging a hole, it is best to bring a ladder with you along with your shovel, because ultimately you are going to want to have a way to climb back up to the surface." |

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No More Speaker Fiascos, Please

I am once again torn after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a resolution, a motion to vacate Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. Whether or not we will have another Speaker fiasco is up for debate as many House Republicans have expressed, "It's not the time," but certainly there is even growing disdain for Speaker Johnson among Republican voters outside of Congress.

The issue for me is that while I disagree with Johnson's decision to allow for more funding to Ukraine, I have also expressed numerous times the need to have at least some modicum of unity within the party, and to have an understanding that while we all want certain things, we're not ever going to get everything we want.

I don't want an all or nothing government anyway, regardless of who is in charge. It doesn't get the work done if you have that expectation or operate that way. The job of Congress, in my view, is not to do the bidding of the parties, but to do the bidding of the American people they represent.

That means having a discussion on the issues, searching for and finding that important middle ground, and deciding things on the basis of compromise that still gets something done even if neither side gets a perfect resolution.

I grant you, the topic of Ukraine is a hot one. It's not our fight. I admit to having mixed feelings about it. Unlike many of my fellow Republicans, I am not as huge a fan of Putin as some my Republican friends seem to be. I view Russia as an evil regime with interests and ideals far removed from core American values.

They are allies with countries like Iran and China for Heaven's sake. And I disagree with Putin's rationale for invading Ukraine in the first place.

The bottom line is, I have no admiration for Putin at all, honestly. I feel for the citizens of Ukraine, caught in a battle they likely will never win. But the amount of money we are sending over there just feels wrong to me when we have other issues inside our own borders to address and a ballooning debt crisis.

I mean, what's the end game for the United States, really, when it comes to Ukraine?

Look, we're only 7 months away from the general election. Can we afford to have another clown show Speaker fight? And I know that assessment might piss of some of my fellow Republican friends. But that's what it is. That's what it looks like to the general voting public. It especially looks like that to the all important independent voters who ultimately decide who wins the race.

I get it. We're conservatives. We're Republicans. We take the higher moral ground and unlike the Democrats, when we have bad dogs, we scold them. 

Meanwhile, all of this infighting also does another thing. It creates a huge distraction. There's work to be done. We should be filing resolutions and having discussions that advance the interests of the public at large. 

I don't like all of what Mike Johnson is doing. At the same time, I have no expectation that I will find myself in agreement with him 100% of the time. Just like with any politician. I don't even disagree 100% of the time with the Democrats.

I think it is important to air our concerns and state our disagreements. But immediately calling for someone to be fired just because we didn't get our way on one or another issue to me is simply childish and uncalled for.

The big question is, how do we expect to win elections if it appears we cannot even agree with ourselves? How can we convince the American people we know how to lead if we can't even decide who leads us?

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Will the Real Joe Biden on Abortion Please Stand Up

The Biden administration is seeming to want to make the overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights a key issue as we draw nearer to November. After all, with the border issue and inflation being #1 and #2 issues concerning Americans, and they have miserably failed on both of them, what else is there to try and win votes on, right?

But there's a giant flaw in their stated positions, and not that politicians on both sides of the aisle aren't prone to a little vote pandering and being a bit disingenuous, but I think some voters siding with Joe Biden at least on the issue of abortion should have more questions than answers.

Because at least if abortion happens to be a key issue swaying a decision to vote one way or the other, trying to understand the root position, or what it probably is, is a pretty important thing to add to the equation, if you ask me.

President Joe Biden never supported Roe v. Wade and was always against abortion, even in the case of rape or incest.

That's important to point out, I think, regardless of where he says he stands on the issue now. Or where he said he stood on the issue from day one of his presidency. Because it's more important to understand how much "fight" will be in defending the issue if a voter gives him another four years in office to do it.

The issue of abortion for Joe Biden is effectively a pander. It's a way to solicit a vote. Because if there's one thing he knows, it's that most people won't bother to check his record and the media isn't going to report on it.

If they do, they will do it very quietly on page 952 of course.

When it comes to Roe v. Wade itself, it wasn't long after the Supreme Court issued its decision in 1973 that Joe Biden stated he disagreed with it, going on to say, "Abortion is always a tragedy." He generally stayed with that position all the way until a few months before he ran for president in 2020. 

Some have chosen to suggest that Biden has simply "reckoned with his Catholic faith," and is now acting on the "greater good," but that does not at all comport with what his stance has been all along. And is this generally a position that you suddenly change your mind about? Especially when your position is deeply rooted in your faith?

In 2006, even before he became the vice president, he said in a televised interview, "I do not view abortion as a choice or a right." That's a stark contrast to what he says his position is now, even taking an opportunity during his final State of the Union speech to scold the Justices, and told them directly, "Women are not without electoral or political power."

His stance now wants to be seen as direct and firm, and both he and Kamala Harris have been pounding the podium at speech after speech saying they will stand strongly for "women's reproductive health," a term they like to use instead of abortion, by the way.

Joe Biden has also always been against any federal funding for abortion, specifically having been a longtime supporter of the Hyde Amendment which banned federal funding for abortions even in the cases of rape or incest. That was his position entirely until he hit the campaign trail in 2019.

It is important to know these things if this is an issue topmost on anyone's radar when it comes to their choice in 2024. Because you have to examine why the position changed only prior to an election campaign in 2020?

Any issue that is important to a voter is a reason to cast a vote for a candidate if you think that candidate is going to fight hard for your cause. But you have to reason that the personal conviction of the candidate is as strong as his word.

Will he be strongly and firmly engaged in fighting for your cause if he gets a second term, or is he just saying that to get a second term now that the decision on Roe v. Wade is set in stone? Just like he said he was for your cause to get his first term?

In other words, his position on abortion was very clear. He was against it. And the only reason he ever said he was okay with it and would fight for it was because that's what he knew voters wanted to hear. It gave him a marked contrast with Trump's position and his message, at least in appearance. 

He wanted to win over a faction of voters and so he decided to say one thing other than what he probably would have said if he had stated his position from the heart rather than to appease a base.

The question is not about what Joe Biden's position appears to be now. The question is whether or not you believe him. Because if abortion is a key issue for anyone undecided, and you think Biden's got your back, you might want to reassess that. He doesn't want to have your back. He wants to have your backing.

If he wins in 2024, you can bet the abortion issue will become ancient history, and he'll just forge ahead with the real agenda to push progressive, liberal ideology on things like climate change and DEI.

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Are They Conspiracies or Simply Truth Being Hidden for Power?

I used to trust my government, and it was often that I sided with the government stating things like, "The government sometimes keeps secrets that are secrets for the good of the people and to protect our national security and other interests."

But recently there have simply been too many things that have caused me to be on the side of questioning everything. The bottom line is, "Who can we trust, and why should we trust them?"

Our government has never been by, for and of the government. It has always been by, for and of the People. But it seems like the government has turned that around to favor only their interests, and to function outside of the interests of the We the People.

To what end, is of course the question?

Not that certain government agencies haven't always been up to sometimes nefarious things. The FBI, for example, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, at a time when there was thought to be massive and clandestine infiltration of communists, gathered all sorts of information on certain Americans—mostly celebrities and public figures. But how do we know it never went farther than that? How do we know that this didn't just become the foundation for what is now the types of information that is gathered?

Not just on public figures. But on every single American? I honestly think not only is the FBI still doing it, along with other of our federal law enforcement arms like the CIA and NSA, but they have amped up the game and joined forces with other unscrupulous people either through coercion or cooperation, or even both.

How much information might Jack Dorsey, the former founder and CEO of Twitter, have offered to certain government agencies? Or how about Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook? Even Jeff Bezos can't be left out or even the late Steve Jobs with the introduction of smart devices and things like Alexa. 

Essentially the government could know everything about you. Including your opinions and political leanings.

It creates a very scary and dangerous world, if you ask me, and it seems so obvious some of these things are happening, and few people seem to be worried about it. It worries me to think about it because it's not where I came from regarding my thoughts and perspective.

Again, I trusted the government and felt that what it did was in the interest of us. We the People.

But the Justice Department isn't really working properly. We can see that with the fervor and tenacity by which they are going after former president Donald Trump. The FBI can be questioned in a great deal of their actions, motivations and intent.

Spying on political campaigns. Perhaps having some involvement in the coordination of January 6th. The persecution of all sorts of conservatives who questioned the election or had any association or involvement with Trump. It's either jail or we'll bankrupt you, take your pick.

The covid pandemic has brought numerous things to light as well. All of the information that was disseminated was kept centralized—trust the CDC and only the CDC. And just like election deniers, anyone who questioned where covid came from or how to deal with it were quickly shut down.

Did social media companies decide to simply go with the CDC and label any question that did not follow the CDC's directives as misinformation? Or was it an "or else" proposition forced by the government to comply and tell the story "as the government wanted it to be told?"

Even more regarding covid, how come we later learned it never came from a bat, but from a lab in Wuhan, and that it was funded by the U.S. government? What was their intent? Was there intent?

Was covid simply a last-ditch effort to get rid of a sitting president they felt never should have been sent to the White House? Was it an effort to test control over the population? 

As I have said many times previously about these things, including whether or not the 2020 election was above board or not, we will likely never have the whole story. We're never going to find the real answers. We may get bits and pieces, but the whole story will probably forever remain a secret.

But not to protect the people. To protect the government and their interests. Not ours.

Cynicism is something badly amiss in this country. Maybe more people are starting to get it? That we need to question our government more than ever? That we need a media that is not engaged in politics, and not supporting one side or the other, but engaged in getting to the truth.

When you think about it, beyond the powers of government, the founders of this great nation allowed the absolute, untouchable freedom of the press so as for it to serve as the eyes and ears to oversee all of the other branches of our government, and hold them accountable, and serve the public by telling the real story.

The Freedom of the Press in the First Amendment was perhaps the biggest and most powerful check and balance we could ever have been afforded.

And now we can't trust the media either.

It pains me to have to be branded a conspiracy theorist these days the more I find myself questioning things. But at the same time, I do wonder if the label "conspiracy theorist" is just another way to silence the questions and make rational thought sound crazier than it actually is?

Anyone can laugh it all off and call someone like me observing things from a rather cynical perspective just a tin-hat nutjob. That's their right, of course. At the same time, it is not something I feel or express because I want to bring down my government or shut down my country. These are simply questions I want answers to so as to preserve and protect the integrity and beauty of what our founding fathers created.

When government becomes more powerful and bigger than the people it serves, it can never remain one that is by, for and of the People. And it's not who sits in the White House who threatens our nation the most. It's the deep-rooted bureaucracies who truly control everything. 

If we, the People, allow them to.

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When it Comes to the Economy, The Democrats Did That

"What magic wand do you have?"

That was the question posed by Barack Obama in response to Donald Trump in the 2016 election when Trump said he could restore the economy and bring back American manufacturing. Of course, this was after eight long years of a virtually no-growth economy under Obama's reign, and it was his contention that the United States was simply transforming into a new economy.

What it was, essentially, was his excuse to try and explain what he was never able to do, and that was to lift the economy out of the throes of the economic crisis he faced when he took his first term in office. "Some of those jobs just aren't going to come back," he said. "Well, I'm going to negotiate a better deal. How are you going to do that?"

Of course, President Trump did in fact, negotiate better deals. Granted, it can be up for debate what real impact some of these deals had on actually bringing back manufacturing in a significant way, but many jobs did return, and certainly the policies that were implemented by Trump had a major positive impact on the economy itself.

Obama's comments signaled, to me, a capitulation and an admission (although quietly) that he had no idea how the economy actually worked, or how to fix it. It certainly showed in his results. And time and time again when he was asked about why the economy was experiencing one of the slowest recoveries in history, he simply pointed blame back at the Bush administration before him.

He blamed Republicans for the economic crisis in 2008 that was largely a result of Bill Clinton's, "Every American should be able to own a home," and blamed Republicans for hurting his economic efforts, and of course went on to simply blame the "new economy." 

It was very clear that he felt that this was just the way things are now, and we're going to have to accept it and adapt to it. That was the capitulation part. "I can't fix what can't be fixed. We now just have to deal with what we have."

Only to turn around when Trump's economy soared and proved Obama very wrong and claim, "I did that."

Now Democrats are fit to claim that all of the economic woes we face today are the result of Trump's policies coming back to bite us in the butt. So, which is it? 

On top of that, what Democrats are doing now is outright dismissing the first three years of Trump's rapid economic successes and only pointing to the last year. "See what he did? See what his policies left us with?"

Only it misses one big point. Covid. Because that was what sunk the economy in Trump's final days. But not through his policies. But through the recommendations of people like Dr. Fauci and Democrat leadership that insisted that businesses be shuttered, and the country should be locked down.

Of course it killed the economy. How could it not? Suddenly we had to print all sorts of money we didn't have to shore up business owners and workers who were sidelined by the shutdowns. It set the wheels in motion to face one of the biggest supply chain crises we've seen in decades.

The odd thing is that right before Trump left office, we actually began to see a massive uptick in the economy. It can only be argued that policies were implemented quickly by Trump to ensure we could get things moving again post-pandemic. They would have worked.

But Biden turned it around and stopped it in its tracks with new policies that made no sense, such as introducing the American Rescue Plan and reversing Trump's energy policies, both actions which catapulted us into 10% inflation by the end of 2021.

Whose fault is it we're in the boat we're in now? According to Biden and the Democrats it's Trump's fault. 

It's the usual Democrat game. Blame someone else when things are bad and take the credit when things are good. Only there's one big problem here.

If Barack Obama wants to claim that Trump's stellar economy was a result of Obama's policies, and Biden won the election in 2020 and essentially continued Obama's policies, why is the economy not ten times better today instead of ten times worse?

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