Lunching out at work is expensive.

I went to a blog post with a calculator that computes how much you'd save if you brownbag your lunch every once in a while.

This is one thing that I am adamant about – not buying lunch as much as possible. Dining out is expensive…even at McDonald's.

My work situation is good for brownbagging…we're all so busy at the office, we hardly have a chance to take a "real" lunch. I started brownbagging week two of my current job…and I only eat out maybe once a week.

Say eating out costs about $8/meal. Buying and preparing food from home $3/meal.  In a week, I save $20. That's $80 for the month…

The other great thing about this is that I feel comfortable treating my co-workers out to lunch occassionally…It's not burning my pocket and they appreciate the generosity. 

What I learned from scratchers…

Investing in the stock market feels a lot like when I played scratchers when I was 19.
The first time I got a $5 scratcher I won $50…so I got about 10 more scratchers…and sometimes I would get $2 back and other times I'd lose.

When I opened my Roth IRA, I purchased an auto-pilot fund that went up about 15%.
Well, since then I opened a separate brokerage account, and my investments have gone down a lot…like everyone else's.

So, I've been rethinking some things…
My natural reaction is to cease investing, but that's driven by emotion. I think if I look at things with the bigger picture in mind, this is what happens…this is part of the pattern to overall growth. I have some things that I know I should do. I should probably stick to a discount broker and purchase at least $1000 worth of stock each time. If I make a market order, it will typically cost about $20 to buy or to sell. So, if I buy some stock at $20 and then sell it…it will really cost me $40…which is what most people earn in savings interest for the year.

I've been building up a CD ladder for the past quarter…and this month I sent in my check. I forgot to transfer money from my savings to checking before the check went through. I think I had thought that the CD would be drawn from my savings directly. So, I got an insufficient funds fee of $30. That totally blows…stupid things like this piss me off. Why didn't I transfer that cash right away?!

Also, one last thing…no matter how much time and effort you spend ito analyze and understand the market, cds, savings, retirement programs, in the end, the best return you get is from your career. I've talked about this with boy a lot…and he feels strongly about investing in one's career. I can see his point; I've paid attention to the market closely over the past half year…haven't made much return…I sure have learned a lot and saved a lot of cash, but what makes more money is my two hours of Photoshop lessons that I give to the sculptor. Also, I've picked up work from our freelance creative director and one of our flash designers…so spending a few hours on that gives me much more than I can from buying and selling stocks. Maybe if I had more dough the return would be greater, but right now…I think I can allocate only up to 15% of excess income to investments. The rest would be split between my long-term savings/cds & retirement.

0601 Asset & Liabilities.

Ether. Ask me about things I know…

I got a beta invitation from Ether.com.

So far, I've only put down website development process as one of my know-hows.

I'll be updating that list gradually. You can check it on the top tab – "Insights (call me through Ether)

This service is pretty cool…because you're assigned a phone number that forwards to your real phone. Someone calls to ask you about what you know whether it be reviews on cameras, how to program something, how to control your kids, etc.etc. And, you get paid for your time.

Neat, right?

I think you can still sign up for beta-testing…Ether.com.